Going on Three Decades

Difficult to manage, impossible to avoid, and the endless driver of opportunity, driving and managing change has been at the core of my work going on three decades. Living and working in Moscow as the Berlin Wall collapsed, guiding senior Western business executive through the splintering of the Soviet Union, and mapping the massive social, political, and global economic changes brought forth by perestroika and glasnost I experienced the turmoil and opportunity of profound change.

The dynamic process through which organizations and individuals act and react has much in common with the interaction of organisms and the natural balance of our globally linked ecosystems. As evolution happens every moment, but cannot be seen except across millennia, the power of entrenched thinking, cultural norms, and infrastructure cannot be swept aside in a moment. Yet, disruptive change happens; incumbent players are toppled and a new order emerges.

As nature abhors a vacuum and water flows until stopped, so too information floods our world – much of it incomplete, inaccurate, or manipulated to suit the needs of one actor at the expense of another.

Whether through research and strategy development or the execution of communications programs, I honed a unique mix of skills enabling me to work effectively at the intersection points where organizations tend to stumble and where high level yet narrow expertise often proves an obstacle to original thinking and the capacity to see opportunities in challenge. Not easily pegged I work in the white space, across and between neatly delineated departments and functions on organizational charts.

Whether presenting at a trade conference, driving a strategic brainstorming session, creating new means of communications, or providing one-on-one counsel to nonprofit or business leaders, my work is firmly grounded in how things are today – and how they might be in a better world tomorrow.