Karen Aberle has been helping organizations throughout the United States , Latin America, and Europe to create cultures of trust and ever-increasing effectiveness and satisfaction for over 20 years.  Her discourse of “Mindful Collaboration” enables people to see the fundamental dance of human existence (the one in which we are always working to produce fulfillment for ourselves and others) in simple terms and practices.  This discourse represents a convergence of multiple worlds of learning – sales, fine arts, ontology of language, and ancient spiritual traditions.

 Karen began her career with eight years at American Airlines in Sales and Marketing.  She was trained as a sculptor at the National Academy of Fine Arts in New York .  After American, she pursued advanced study into the nature of design with Fernando Flores, philosopher, Stanford researcher, and entrepreneur.  In 1988, after completing a 3-year program in ontological design, Karen became the director of education for Action Technologies, Flores ’ company that introduced one of the first PC-based workgroup productivity tools called “The Coordinator”.  As she began training companies in the fundamentals of coordinating action, she discovered a profound lack of basic understanding of the moves to make in developing highly effective partnerships. 

In 1997 Karen found herself in a completely unexpected path, that of the Huichol Indians of Central Mexico, when she undertook the ancient rite of passage known as vision quest, a journey alone into the wilderness, sitting many days and nights without food or shelter, seeking a vision and divine guidance and wisdom.  Understanding that hers was the work of providing healing and divine support to her people, she entered into a 12-year apprenticeship to become a Shaman.  After the first six years, she was initiated and has been integrating this spiritual learning and practice into her work with leaders, companies, and communities. Her ability to bring people to the center of divine flow and give them tools to navigate the inevitable challenges of commitment has earned her a reputation as a powerful force of intervention that comes with humor and humility, and gratitude for all that human life bestows upon us. 

Karen lives in New York with her husband and manages to balance concerns for her worldwide clients, two daughters, and three grandchildren in Dallas, and extended family in Chile .

www.aberleunlimited.com

Ellen is an award winning brand champion. Her extraordinary ability to understand consumers' concerns and commitments, and to reach them in some of the toughest situations, powers profits and accolades.

Her record of growth and innovation includes over thirty diverse consumer, OTC, and pharmaceutical/device categories, in both US and International, Developed and Emerging markets. While at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Ellen spanned numerous assignments in Brand Management, New Products, Global Category Development, Licensing and Business Development, and Direct-to-Consumer/Patient (DTC/P) Marketing.

Ellen has been a leader in U.S. and global consumer and healthcare marketing for over two decades. During this time, she has twice been recognized by Advertising Age magazine as one of this country’s 25 Most Powerful Marketing Executives. In 2001, Ellen took her breakthrough approach and established a consulting practice. 

Ellen is a DTC pioneer, spearheading  Direct-To –Consumer/Patient (DTC/P) brand marketing initiatives consistently since the FDA regulations changed in 1997. Working with both brand teams and agencies, her innovations have addressed some of the industry’s toughest problems, helping to develop and implement upwards of 40 Direct-to-Consumer/Patient (DTC/P) programs. Her campaigns drove profitable growth, including increased awareness, conversion and/or retention. Her collaboration with the new pediatric ADHD medication, Vyvanse, won Silver for Best New Brand of the Year (2007) from DTC Perspectives magazine and PhAME.

During her years with BMS, Ellen advanced DTC/P marketing, creating the first Center of Excellence to optimize the consumer/patient in 1997. Responsible for all DTC/P efforts across BMS’ ten billion dollar U.S. Pharmaceutical business (13 brands), her team drove consumer growth and ROI.  They evaluated the role of the consumer, crafted consumer strategy and positioning, drove Relationship Marketing programs, DTC/P metrics and learning, oversaw the database and back-end support, agency selection/management, and supported clinical recruitment. Ellen’s group helped build several billion-dollar businesses as well as a number of smaller ones at various stages of product life cycle.

Prior to 15 years with BMS, Ellen began at Revlon, where she marketed Flex, the leading haircare line at the time. She holds both an MBA and a BS in Marketing and Management from NYU, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She is a regularly featured speaker at industry conferences throughout the world. 

www.advancemarketworx.com

Michael leads senior executives - those who excelled in a 20th century environment - to embrace new questions, new interpretations, and demands for new competence.

He is the founding partner of mac advisors, specializing in keeping senior level leaders at the top of their profession. He advises executives in the generation of winning strategies, to enhance leadership skills, address board goverance issues, sustain reliable high performance, and develop business.  Currently, he maintains a select practice with corporate and entrepreneurial leaders in the US and Europe.

Michael's track record demonstrates a continuous history of leading highly effective senior teams and facilitating leaders in a variety of industries.  Formerly, he co-founded Lee Hecht Harrison's global leadership development/coaching practice, a multi-million dollar consultancy working with senior leaders in Fortune 1000 companies in 150 locations throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the South Pacific.  He managed global sales, strategic accounts, and designed and delivered leadership initiatives to senior executives.

Michael began his career in banking and real estate finance. For over 25 years he sold, marketed and developed commercial real estate.  He served as a broker, manager, and director or marketing for Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate and developed over $240 million worth of commercial property for his own firm, MacLand Properties, and for Fortune 1000 companies.  He was a partner in Bay Group, the consulting firm that created Visa International/USA's world headquarters.

Michael graduated from Occidental College, where he studied as a CORO research fellow.  In 1995, he took a sabbatical to study with a leading anthropologist in the areas of leadership philosophies, advanced coaching, and ancient and contemporary models of individual and team participation/contribution.

Michael has been a featured speaker around the U.S. on leadership effectiveness, breakthrough thinking, team building, and business development.

Lisa J. Marshall is an expert at NLP and a highly respected leadership coach.  She excels at introducing new practices to high-performing technical organizations, enabling them to meet new challenges and enjoy outstanding use of resource.

Lisa's Smart Work Company prepares executives, teams and organizations to be heroes so they can do their best work.  They work with customers and partners to:

• Develop leadership stories for organizations and individuals
• Motivate leaders and align organizations
• Improve collaboration and team functions
• Coordinate coaching as a culture change tool
• Envision and help mold future of work environments.

Lisa, a nationally recognized authority on leadership maturity and the use of story in the workplace, has consulted for Intel, The Army Corps of Engineers, Capital One, EDS, Hewlett Packard, NASA, Taiwan Semiconductor and the Department of Agriculture.  She has coached at Intel, KPMG, Booz-Allen Hamilton Accenture, the Department of Energy and EDS.

Ms. Marshall's most recent book is called Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity.  She has a chapter called "Where Are the Grownups?  Developing Mature Leaders" in the 2006 Pfeiffer Training Annual.  She also co-wrote, Smart Work: The Syntax Guide for Mutual Understanding, and is co-author of the essay "Why Smart Organizations Don't Learn" in Productivity Press's best-selling Learning Organizations: Creating Cultures for Tomorrow's Workplace.  She spent 12 years as an educational/documentary film and video producer, documenting social change before she moved into business. 

She is a graduate of Bennington College and is certified in Conversation-Based Assessment, Syntax, Ontological Coaching, Somatic Coaching and Transition Management.  Lisa has been coaching for over a decade and received her Master Coach Certification (CMC) from the International Coaching Federation in 2006. 

www.smartworkco.com

Dan Montgomery brings decades of experience leading teams to foge new metrics that boost performance and catalyze change.

Dan's workshops and coaching services address the challenges of leaders building organizations, facing concerns with sustainability, transparency, and accountability, technological change, and innovation.

His work with business owners, executives and management teams focuses on assessing current performance, aligning actions around common strategies and goals, and dealing with issues of trust, commitment, and delivery.

His entertaining and provocative talks and workshops integrate emerging perspectives about business performance and valuation, leadership, and social systems into practical everyday business and personal practices.

Dan has an MBA from the University of Colorado, as well as a Masters in Psychology from Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado.  He is also a graduate of the Newfield Network's highly regarded coaching program, and holds the Certified Management Consultant (CMC) designation.

For more information, visit:  www.blue-opal.com