Rachel Conerly
Rachel’s mission is to help leaders find their purpose and calling and to lead in accordance with this calling. She enables clients to do their life’s work in a highly productive and gratifying way.

Rachel founded Collaborative Leaders, Inc., an organization whose work is to create a critical mass of leaders capable of addressing the world’s most difficult problems. She has worked for 13 years as an Organizational Development and Management Consultant and consults to top leaders, teaching collaboration and creating executive team alignment. Through Working Collaboratively, a training program for executives, Rachel and her colleagues offer a productive alternative to traditional hierarchical leadership. She also teaches other leadership programs and leads executive retreats.

Rachel earned her executive coaching certification through the World Institute, LLC and Duke University Leadership Training and Continuing Studies. She is a member of several professional associations, including The Organizational Development Network, Psychodynamics of Organizations, and the International Federation of Coaches. Her clients include ING, the Coca-Cola Company, Rockwell International, United Parcel Service, John Deere, IBM, MCI and numerous others.

Rachel graduated from Presbyterian College with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1986. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC, with her husband and daughter.

Kent Ewing
A former career naval officer, Kent most recently served as President of the U.S. Division of Leitch Incorporated, which he joined in 1993 as Director of Government Programs. As President of the U.S. Division, from 1996 to May 1998, Kent helped grow the company from $25M to over $100M in gross revenues.

Before working at Leitch, Kent was Commanding Officer of the USS America (CV-66) during Desert Storm. In his naval career he also commanded USS Sylvania (AFS-2), Carrier Air Wing Seventeen, and Attack Squadron Sixty Six. Kent has flown 7500 hours in over 100 different military and commercial aircraft, and made over 1150 carrier landings.

Kent holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Masters of Science in Systems Management from the University of Southern California. A Dayton, Ohio native, Kent also is a 1974 graduate of the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School, Patuxent River. In 1986 he was selected as a Senior Executive Fellow and attended the Harvard JFK School of Government. He has been a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots since 1976 and a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers since 1993.

Kent lives in Virginia Beach with his wife. He has two grown children.

John Fahlberg
John Fahlberg provides executive coaching, strategic planning and advisory services to a broad range of clients. He has held senior leadership positions in entrepreneurial, mid-sized and larger companies. He has been CEO, EVP Business Development, CFO, VP Business Planning and VP Marketing in technology, retail, service, and entertainment businesses. He has led companies through high growth periods, acquisitions, restructuring and strategic repositioning. He has secured financing for various stages of growth through venture capitalists, investment banks, major lenders and initial public offerings. His diverse experience allows him to work effectively with leaders at companies in varying stages of growth and in different industries.

John is particularly adept at assimilating business situations, organizational dynamics and key business drivers. He is also good at establishing rapport and trust with executives at varying levels of responsibility. He is a good listener, excellent strategic thinker and focuses on helping leaders achieve both their professional and business goals.

Fahlberg holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Augsburg College and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota. John and his wife Marty live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Tim Kelley
Tim Kelley has worked for over twelve years as a management consultant, executive coach and corporate trainer. He has guided many individuals and teams to finding their vision. He also designs and delivers leadership training programs for executives and managers in the high tech industry. Before beginning his career as a consultant, Tim was a development director at Oracle Corporation, where he worked for eight years. He has won industry competitions for database performance enhancement and deployed global financial management systems. His clients include Hewlett Packard, American Airlines, Deloitte & Touche, Charles Schwab, Bayer, and numerous smaller companies and startups.

Tim’s visioning methodology, “The Purposeful Leader,” has been featured in magazines and on television. He has trained hundreds of coaches and trainers in visioning and facilitation techniques. He is an inspiring public speaker. Tim is certified by Helen Palmer to teach the Enneagram, and is a trained Voice Dialogue facilitator.

Additionally, Tim has commanded military organizations, including an ammunition handling team, an amphibious assault craft unit, a submarine repair unit, and an at-sea cargo handling detachment. He is a skilled navigator and a decorated Naval Reserve officer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theoretical mathematics from MIT. Tim lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Heather and son Ronan.

John Lucy
John Lucy provides Business Coaching and Advisory Services to a range of clients. He specializes in working with Entrepreneurs and Small to Mid-sized companies, including turnaround situations. He also assists organizations in identifying sources of capital. He has served in various capacities as an Executive, Director and Trustee for private, public, and non-profit organizations for over 20 years. He currently serves as President of an $8 million company in the forest products industry.

His experience as an Executive, Director, Shareholder provide an understanding of risk management from all perspectives and the impact that it has on an organization for the long term. Widely recognized for his strategic vision, Mr. Lucy understands what it takes to properly position an organization for success in a marketplace. His thorough knowledge of the planning and leadership issues has enabled him to successfully grow each enterprise that he has had the privilege to lead.

Although John is a strategic visionary, his practical experience includes work in functional areas of Finance, Sales, Marketing, Plant Operations, and Logistics. His action-oriented attitude, business experience and creative strengths, coupled with strong interpersonal skills, allow him to help individuals and their organizations execute strategies for long term success. He leads people and their organizations to achieve success by building a solid foundation based on collaboration, integrity, customer focus, creativity, improvement, and accountability to stakeholders.

John and his wife have two sons. They reside on a small horse farm in Apex, NC near Raleigh.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

• Duke University Business Coaching Program
• The Collaborative Institute, Affiliate Certification.
• National Association of Corporate Directors – Director’s College
• The Wharton School – Critical Decision Making
• Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute - “Jonah” Certification, Constraint Analysis, Thinking Processes
• FranklinCovey – Certified Facilitator of Time Management and Seven Habits courses
• Virginia Tech – 1980 - B.S. in Business
• Staunton Military Academy – 1976. Battalion Staff Officer. Currently serves on Alumni Board

John C. Mitchell
John Mitchell is a seasoned executive with demonstrated general management, leadership, and business-building skills across a broad and complex range of consumer products businesses and high technology computer peripherals and associated services. Over his career Mitchell has consistently provided business vision, organizational alignment, and leadership to achieve or exceed budgeted business objectives.

Mitchell was president of the $1.5+ billion Business Printer Division of Lexmark International, Inc. Before that, he was president of the $1.1 billion Planters and LifeSavers Companies at Nabisco. During more than 10 years at Nabisco, Mitchell also served as president of the Sales and Integrated Logistics Company and was in numerous other executive positions. He previously had brand and product management responsibilities at RJR/Del Monte and Procter & Gamble.

Mitchell earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Virginia Military Institute, a master’s in business administration at Indiana University, and is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Law. He also has a Business Coaching Certificate from Duke University and is a principle with Collaborative Leaders, Inc. Mitchell and his wife, Marie, have one daughter, Allison, who currently is completing her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Warwick in England, while she serves as a Visiting Scholar at Florida Atlantic University.

Karen Rice
Karen Rice specializes in integrating strategy alignment, process facilitation, and instructional design to achieve sustainable performance improvements.

Karen brings over 10 years of experience serving both internal and external consulting roles in large and small organizations. Karen has served as Manager of Training and Education for BellSouth, Senior Human Resources Consultant with Wells Fargo Bank and as a Performance Technology Consultant with companies including Lucent Technologies/ Avaya, Sykes, BellSouth and Delta Air Lines.

Karen holds a M.S. and Ph.D. qualification in instructional systems design. She is an accomplished speaker and author of several articles and has addressed gatherings of both instructional technology academics and industry practitioners.

Dan Richards
For 16 years Dan Richards has assisted company executives and Boards, in both the profit and not-for-profit sectors, in addressing their significant operational and strategic opportunities. His commercial clients have included large companies such as MCI and Amgen and smaller privately held companies like Ivan Allen, RWS Wire & Cable, and Stylecrest Products. Not-for-profit clients include Emory University Healthcare, Coca Cola, Girl’s Inc, Earth University, and the YWCA. Dan can provide leadership to new efforts or analytical frameworks and firepower to existing initiatives.

Dan’s primary areas of focus and expertise are Strategy and Planning, both enterprise-wide and market specific, Organization Effectiveness in sales and operations including process redesign, and Culture Change Management and project management using a collaborative process. He brings strong skills in developing an understanding of complex, multi-disciplinary situations through rigorous and logical analyses, in providing clear direction for client executives and teams to make and implement decisions regardless of uncertainty, complexity or conflict and in building trusting, productive relationships by working collaboratively with diverse groups across functional areas and organizational levels.

Prior to beginning his consulting practice, Dan was President of E-Z Pak, a start-up packaging manufacturer. He won several large domestic contracts including Coors Brewery’s initial snack food plant and coordinated eight U.S. manufacturers in designing and producing the first five turnkey snack food plants installed in China. Dan’s career began at General Motors with several production and engineering assignments over a 10 year period.

Dan is an industrial engineering graduate of Kettering University, formerly GMI, and has his MBA from Harvard. He has taught Operations Management and Operations Strategy at Georgia State’s Graduate Business School.

Dana Sherman
Dana has a Master's Degree and Ph.D. in Psychology with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from Duke University. Dana's research and teaching interests focus on trust in interpersonal and professional relationships. Her academic publications include, "The grammars of trust: A model and general implications" (Academy of Management Review), "The Four Faces of Trust: An Empirical Study of the Nature of Trust in Relational Forms" (Chapter in Relational Models Theory); and "The intergenerational transmission of social development" (Social Development). After graduating, Dana became Director of Human Resources for a small start up company, AwayMed.com. Dana also worked as a management consultant helping top management streamline, restructure, and build trust in their organizations. For the past several years, she has worked as an educator and coach in Scottsdale, AZ. She is now focused on offering effective strategies, through workshops and private classes, for dealing with stressful situations in both professional and interpersonal relationships. She also deals with these issues as a writer for Arizona Parenting Magazine.

David Schmidt
David is a senior executive recognized for his ability to select the initiatives that really matter and to drive them to successful completion. David works collaboratively and leverages strengths in process redesign, operational excellence, program management, and information technology to get the right things done in the right way.

David has led large, complex projects in over 20 years with Accenture and GlaxoSmithKline, and has experience in clinical trials, disease management, information technology, research & development, business development, supply chain, and government.

David has an MBA in Health Administration from Temple University and a Marketing degree from Villanova University.

David lives in Chapel Hill, NC with his wife and 2 children.

Mark Voorsanger
Mark is a consultant and executive coach who has been working with and managing high technology teams for more than 25 years. Mark’s experience as a business entrepreneur, corporate executive overseeing globally distributed production teams, and executive coach focusing on leadership development and authenticity, make him uniquely qualified to work with individuals and business leaders in high technology.

Business Experience: Mark’s experience includes 25 years of consulting, entrepreneurship, team leadership, and business management in both small and mid-sized companies. He co-founded and managed a successful software development company (TJ&E Productions, Inc.), served as Sr. Producer at a major publisher of computer and video games (Electronic Arts), and as VP of Production Studios for a major educational software and toy manufacturer (LeapFrog Enterprises).

Coaching & Consulting: Mark has coached individuals from C-level executives to mid-level sales managers to mothers returning to work, and consulted with cross-functional high-technology production teams in diverse areas from process improvement to communication. The guiding principle spanning all of Mark’s coaching and consulting engagements is that of personal and organization leadership through self-awareness, accountability and authenticity.

Education: Mark is a certified co-active coach (CPCC), with training from the Coaches Training Institute (CTI). Mark has also completed CTI’s Leadership Program, a ten-month intensive course on co-active leadership. Mark is a trained True Purpose™ coach, and has been trained in the Collaborative Operating System™. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Personal: Among Mark’s greatest joys in life is time spent with close family. Although separated, Mark maintains a vital and loving relationship with his wife of 25 years, Kay. He is also a classical guitarist, swimmer, mountain biker, and active leader and public speaker in Toastmasters. Mark grew up in Marin County, California, where he currently resides with his two daughters, Melanie (14) and Holly (9)

Jeffrey Van Dyk
Jeffrey is a leader in the coaching and consulting industry, helping people who ache to have a huge impact on the world. He uses the Collaborative Operating System with change-agent organizations to help them expand their reach and achieve their missions more deftly. Jeffrey has nearly two decades of experience in training and development, having worked in high tech before moving into the professional coaching arena. While at Microsoft, Jeffrey worked personally with leaders such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Peter Jennings, Ariel Sharon and Jacques Chirac. In addition to his coaching and consulting practice, Jeffrey is on faculty at the True Purpose Institute and Dream Coach University, training coaches worldwide in the life purpose processes. Jeffrey is president of the International Coach Federation’s San Francisco chapter and holds numerous coach certifications, including being a Certified True Purpose™ Coach, Certified Professional Co-Active Coach , Certified Dream Coach® and Professional Certified Coach.

Elizabeth Agnew
Liz leverages her engineering background and passion for helping teams to help clients develop their leadership skills and communicate better.

Liz has logged hundreds of hours coaching individuals from companies such as Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Google, HP, SETI, Lockheed Martin, VNUS and Sun Microsystems. Her background includes extensive experience in adult education, team facilitation, and public speaking. Before becoming a corporate coach, Liz was a Project Engineer at Hinman Consulting Engineers, Inc., a highly technical engineering consulting firm, where she worked as a structural engineer as well as with the firm’s recruiting, retention and performance evaluation efforts.

Liz serves as co-President of SF Coaches, a local chapter of the International Coach Federation. She is also on the leadership team of Business Network International. A native of New York State, Liz holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cornell University and M.S. in Structural Engineering from Stanford University. Liz is a graduate of Coach U, the leading global provider of coach training programs. She is an Associate Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation.