Ron Ashkenas has been a thought-partner on organizational change, leadership, and transformation with prominent private, non-profit, and public-sector executives for over thirty years and is an Emeritus Partner of Schaffer Consulting in Stamford, Connecticut. He was part of the team that worked with Jack Welch to transform GE in the 1990s. His other clients have included the World Bank and Federal Reserve Bank of NY; Merck, Pfizer, and GSK pharmaceuticals; technology companies such as Cisco and Cognizant; Stanford Hospital and the MD Anderson Cancer Center; financial services companies such as AIG, JP Morgan Chase, Thomson Reuters, and Zurich Insurance; and consumer products firms including PepsiCo, ConAgra Foods, and P&G.
Ron has written seven articles for the Harvard Business Review, including Why Good Projects Fail Anyway, The Merger Dividend, and Rebounding from Career Setbacks. He is the author of Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done (Harvard Business Press, 2009) and the co-author of four other books, the latest of which is The HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level (Harvard Business Press, 2019). He has been an executive-in-residence at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and lectures on change management, acquisition integration, simplification, executive leadership, and innovation at universities and conferences around the world.
Ron Ashkenas has been a thought-partner on organizational change, leadership, and transformation with prominent private, non-profit, and public-sector executives for over thirty years and is an Emeritus Partner of Schaffer Consulting in Stamford, Connecticut. He was part of the team that worked with Jack Welch to transform GE in the 1990s. His other clients have included the World Bank and Federal Reserve Bank of NY; Merck, Pfizer, and GSK pharmaceuticals; technology companies such as Cisco and Cognizant; Stanford Hospital and the MD Anderson Cancer Center; financial services companies such as AIG, JP Morgan Chase, Thomson Reuters, and Zurich Insurance; and consumer products firms including PepsiCo, ConAgra Foods, and P&G.
Ron has written seven articles for the Harvard Business Review, including Why Good Projects Fail Anyway, The Merger Dividend, and Rebounding from Career Setbacks. He is the author of Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done (Harvard Business Press, 2009) and the co-author of four other books, the latest of which is The HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level (Harvard Business Press, 2019). He has been an executive-in-residence at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and lectures on change management, acquisition integration, simplification, executive leadership, and innovation at universities and conferences around the world.
Debbie Bing is President and Principal of CFAR, a management consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia and Boston. In 2016, CFAR was named in Forbes’ listing of America’s Best Management Consulting Firms, with the distinction of having a high number of both client and colleague recommendations. Debbie co-leads CFAR’s practice in family- and owner-led business consultation, focusing on such issues as generational succession, strategy formation, and family conflict resolution. In October 2014, Debbie was honored as a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute. She is member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations and her paper, “Crowding Out the Space: The Weakness of a Strong Leader,” won its annual Bridger Award in 2008.
Debbie holds a Master's of International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Her publications include:
“How to Manage Behind-the-Scenes Power Players,” Family Business Magazine, November/December 2012.
“The Weakness of Strong Leaders: Crowding Out Space for Collective Purpose,” People and Strategy, Volume 35, No. 4, 2012.
Gabriella Braun is the Director of Working Well, a specialist consultancy company in the UK. With a background in education and training, she consults to Boards, leaders and teams. Her clients include University of Cambridge, Queen Mary and King’s College, University of London, Further Education colleges and primary and secondary schools. She has consulted to organizations in the arts and culture sector including the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art, Tate and a global theatre innovation company. She has worked with Great Ormond Street hospital and the Royal Free Foundation Trust, a global campaigning charity, Oxfam, Unicef UK and pharmaceutical and food manufacturing companies.
Gabriella developed a series of seminars on psychoanalysis and leadership, which she ran for CEOs and Principals of Further Education Colleges and for leaders from workplaces such as The Body Shop and The British Library.
She was a Principal Consultant at the Tavistock Consultancy Service and taught on the Tavistock Masters degree in organizational consultancy.
Gabriella has a Masters in Continuing Education from Warwick University and a Masters in Consulting to Organisations from the Tavistock Centre.
Her publications include:
How can psychoanalysis and systems theory contribute to the leadership of thinking in the Further Education and Skills Sector? (With David Armstrong). FETL, 2016.
‘Organisations today: What happens to attachment?’ in Psychodynamic Practice, Vol.17, No.2, May 2011.
Nancy Drozdow is a Principal and Founder of CFAR, a management consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia and Boston. She is a member of the firm’s board of directors and executive committee. She is a founder and fellow of the Family Firm Institute and won its annual Richard Beckhard Practice Award in 2012 . The award honors members who have made outstanding contributions to the field of family business practice. Combining an understanding of financial performance with a family systems perspective, Nancy coaches firm owners through the process of strategy formation, leadership transitions, and generational succession.
Nancy has published widely in the business press in such journals and magazines as Sloan Management Review, Business Week, CEO Magazine, Family Business Magazine, Journal of Management Consulting, Family Business Review, and the New York Times.
Nancy holds an MBA in strategy from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Her publications include:
"The Imagined Conversation,” Family Business Magazine, 2011.
“Tools for Strategy Development in Family Firms,” (with Vincent Carroll) Sloan Management Review, Fall 1997.
Allison Dunn, Associate Director, is a principal of Worklab, a management consulting firm based in New York City, specializing in strategy implementation and leadership development. She is a board member of the Organization Development Network of Greater New York. She specializes in coaching individuals, helping them to clarify their goals and achieve their strategic objectives. She has extensive experience in the financial services sector working in brokerage, credit services, and online banking, focusing on marketing, analysis, and operations management. She led projects in web services development, system integration projects, and cultural change initiatives.
Allison holds a Masters in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from New York University where she was a Masters Scholar.
Larry Hirschhorn is the Program Director of the Dynamics of Consulting Program. He is a Principal and Founder of CFAR, a management consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia and Boston. Trained as an economist, and retrained as psychoanalytically informed organization consultant, Larry consults to organizations on issues of strategy formation and strategy execution. He focuses on linking questions of strategy to the dynamics of individual and group decision-making. He has helped develop the “organizational working note” as a method for communicating an organizational diagnosis to clients.
He has worked with such companies and organizations as Penn Medicine, Georgetown University, Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals, and KPMG.
Larry is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, and was on the faculty of the Organization Program at the William Alanson White Institute for Psychology and Psychoanalysis. He teaches a course on the psychodynamics of organizations at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a fellow of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He was on the standing faculty of the Wharton School and Fielding Graduate University.
Two of his published papers, “The Power of Moral Purpose: Sandler O’Neill and Partners in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001” and “The Fall of Howell Raines: A Study in the Moralization of Organizational Life,” have won journal awards. The former paper was coauthored with Marc Maltz and Steven Freeman.
Larry holds a PhD in economics from MIT.
His publications include:
The Workplace Within: Psychodynamics of Organizational Life, Cambridge: MIT Press: 1988.
Reworking Authority: Leading and Following in a Post-Modern Age. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997.
Kara Hayward is a Principal at Incandescent. Her work connects strategy, culture and organizational dynamics, with clients that range from Fortune 500 companies to ventures, philanthropies and nonprofits.
She loves to help leaders and teams work through the hardest strategic and organizational development challenges they face, tackling questions like:
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How do we take decisive action with confidence in an increasingly complex environment?
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In what ways does our organization need to evolve to tackle a changing set of problems?
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How must I as a leader change the way I show up in order for this strategy to take flight?
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How can I create bring my team together and create positive momentum for change to take root?
Sharon Horowitz is a business psychologist and the Founder of CenterNorth International, a multidisciplinary consulting firm specializing in both founder/owner firms and public companies. Her services include the psychology of financial risk taking, leadership/team creativity and performance; leadership selection and executive coaching for role transitions/promotions, partnership structures; M&A and Lift-outs/ Integration, onboarding for senior new hires seeking to gain insight into the political nuances necessary for role success. She consults regularly to Wall Street firms.
Sharon has consulted to such companies and organizations as Morgan Stanley, Etrade Financial, JPMorgan India, Nomura, Bank of America, Citigroup, MasterCard, Gartner, The Publicist Group, and Gerson Lehman Group.
She was a clinical instructor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an associate faculty member at the Tavistock Consultation Service in London, England. She was co-producer of two-year leadership program at the Harvard Club of New York City entitled "Women and Power: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Enjoy It.”
Her writing and speaking focus on leadership transitions, succession planning, risk taking, the partnership process, women and leadership, and crisis management.
Her publications include:
“Extreme Work Environments: Beyond Anxiety and Social Defense,” (with Larry Hirschhorn) in Social Defenses Against Anxiety, London: Karnac: 2014.
“The Discovery and Loss of a Compelling Space” in Working Below the Surface, London: Karnac, 2004.
James Krantz is the Managing Principal of Worklab, a management consulting firm based in New York City specializing in strategy implementation and leadership development. Jim is President of the Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations in Boston. He is also past president and a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.
Jim has consulted to such companies as Google, Genzyme, and Unilever.
Jim has served on the standing faculties of the Wharton School and Yale University. In addition, he has taught at numerous other universities including INSEAD, Columbia, The McKinsey Center for Asian Leadership, Harvard, Universidad de Chile, and Lancaster University (UK).
Jim holds a PhD in Social Systems Sciences from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
His publications include:
“Social Defenses in the Information Age” in Social Defenses Against Anxiety: Explorations in the Paradigm, London: Karnac, 2014.
“Reflective Space and the Exercise of Power” in Psychoanalytic Essays on Power and Vulnerability, London: Karnac, 2013.
Marc Maltz is a founding partner of the Triad Consulting Group LLC, a founding member of the Boswell Group LLC, and a senior executive coach at Rebot.io. Marc helps CEOs, boards, and senior officers develop and transform their organizations, manage risk, and improve productivity. Marc specializes in helping clients develop organizational resiliency, a key component for any firm experiencing setbacks or unexpected changes in market conditions. He has extensive experience in consulting to the CEO’s of startups. He helps them gain personal insight as a vehicle for tackling difficult dilemmas and improving personal and organizational performance.
Marc is a member of the A.K. Rice Institute and the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. He is on the Board of Directors for ISPSO, the Gordon Lawrence Foundation, and Patron Technologies.
Marc has an MBA and holds postgraduate certificates from MIT, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the William Alanson White Institute for Psychology and Psychoanalysis.
His publications include:
“The Power of Moral Purpose: Sandler O’Neill and Partners in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001" (co-authored with Steven Freeman and Larry Hirschhorn), Organizational Development Journal, Winter 2004.
“A Framework for Consulting to Organizational Role,” Consulting Psychology Journal, Practice and Research, Spring 1997.
Malachi O’Connor is a Principal and Senior Vice President of CFAR, a management consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia and Boston. Trained as an ethnographer, Mal bring clients into touch with the tacit features of organization culture: its norms, taboos, implicit values, and informal arrangements that get work done. He is particularly skilled in facilitating large-scale organization change that cuts across divisions and professions. He has worked with Family Medicine for American Health on a wide ranging reconceptualization of the role of family medicine in the U.S. healthcare system. The effort integrates the work of taskforces representing a wide range of professional groups such as family physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other specialists.
Mal has lectured at the Conference Board, the American College of Healthcare Executives, and the National Center for State Courts. He is a member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organization and was a faculty member of the Organization Program at the William Alanson White Institute for Psychology and Psychoanalysis.
Mal holds a PhD in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania.
His publications include:
The Moment You Can't Ignore: When Big Trouble Leads to a Great Future (with Barry Dornfeld), New York: Public Affairs, 2014. This book was cited as one of the three best business books on organizational culture published in 2014, in the journal strategy+business.
Chatham Sullivan is an organizational psychologist, author, and co-founder of the global innovation firm Subculture.
Chatham and his colleagues at Subculture pioneered an alternative model of innovation that enables mature companies to avoid stagnation and evolve, grow, and flourish. Chatham works closely with influential brands and institutions around the world like Google, Johnson & Johnson, Ogilvy & Mather, PayPal, CitiBank, Harvard University, PBS and NPR. He is advisor at Innosight, founded by Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen founded to apply the theories of disruptive innovation. Chatham also wrote The Clarity Principle, was past lecturer and executive faculty at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at Wharton School of Business, and a fly fishing guide on the Platte river in Wyoming. He lives in Boston with 3 children, 3 step-children, and his partner Vanessa.