Introduction of the Core Faculty of Closely Held Trainers and Consultants at The de Bono Group

As President of The de Bono Group and Dean of the Faculty, I am honored and proud to introduce our core faculty of closely held Edward de Bono trainers and consultants. They form the cornerstone of our four criteria for excellence: Quality, Integrity, Expert Knowledge and Professionalism.
 

As you read through their bios, you will also notice their diversity of skills, talents and client base. That diversity keeps our thinking and professional relationships ever more stimulated and creative. And it produces a better product of what we can deliver to our clients.

What you may not see, but need to know is that they are a joy to work with. It has been my absolute pleasure to know all of them as friends and professional colleagues. Coupled with our select international network of trainers representing 56 countries, we make a powerful team.

I commend them to you. Let us help you achieve the innovative business results you strive for.

President - The de Bono Group, LLC

Please call us at 1-888-572-2190 or email us at info@debonogroup.com
for more information or to schedule a program.

 

Karen Franta Love, Vice President of The de Bono Group, has over twenty years of experience in corporate and educational management and organizational development. She is instrumental in integrating de Bono tools and methods into a variety of organizational cultures, large, medium and small businesses. Using de Bono tools, she has delivered results with operations improvement, Six Sigma, project management, research and design, strategic planning, and corporate education to improve performance, communication, and solve problems. This range of work includes VP and C-Level executives, physicians and scientists, as well as mid-level and frontline employees. Her business areas of expertise are healthcare, insurance, public relations, and higher education.

Karen is a Master Trainer in Six Thinking Hats, and Lateral Thinking, a trainer for Direct Attention Thinking, and Leading High Performance Thinking for de Bono Thinking Systems. With a strong background in training and curriculum design, she is highly skilled in educating trainers in de Bono Tools and applications. She has a wealth of experience leading innovation and ideation processes using de Bono Tools and coaching others in thinking. Indicating Karen’s breadth of experience as a Master Trainer and Facilitator, her clients include Trinity Health Systems, Shelter Insurance, Nestle Purina, Merck, Proctor and Gamble, Central Bancompany, Genentech, National Propane and Research Council, Missouri Department of Revenue and the American Creativity Association.

Karen was recently a senior organizational development specialist for the internationally recognized Methodist Hospital System in Houston, Texas--a top Fortune 100 Best Place to Work, and U.S. News and World Report Honor Roll Hospital. Karen holds certification in Human Performance Improvement from ASTD, and Total Quality Management from the University of Texas Quality Center. She received her B.S. from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX and her M.Ed. from the University of Vermont.

 

Mark Sato is a senior consultant and Master Trainer for The de Bono Group. He combines over 20 years of hands-on management experience in the financial services, healthcare, and software industries with equivalent years of leadership development and training success.

Since 2005, Mark has delivered the Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking solutions to de Bono clients in the software, healthcare, transportation, and finance industries. Specific results include: improved leadership communication with software programming management team; increased idea generation and efficiency in healthcare research and development team meetings; started global process design for international transportation organization; created process improvement ideas for finance sales leadership team.

Mark has held management and training management positions at Franklin Templeton, Kaiser Permanente, and Oracle Corporation, and holds certifications with top coaching, communication and performance management providers.   He has global leadership training experience working with managers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, as well as extensive virtual facilitation design and delivery experience.  He earned an MBA from California State University, Hayward (East Bay) in Management.

 

Ed Franowicz is the Vice President of Corporate Development for The de Bono Group, LLC. Ed has dedicated his career to education and leadership development. He is a Master Trainer in 6-Hats, certified in Lateral Thinking, and an accomplished international speaker and facilitator. Over the years, he has trained over 1,000 people in de Bono tools and techniques from such organizations as Lockheed Martin, General Mills, Corning, Sun Microsystems, ING, Best Buy, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Anglo Platinum, Unilever, Merck, and AT&T.

As the Head of Faculty of the Corporate Executive Board’s Leadership Academies, Ed led a global team of 20 facilitators who developed aspiring C-level executives around the world. He played a central role in the design and delivery of the Academy’s curriculum which centered on participants’ skill gaps as identified by senior-most executives.

For several years, Ed advised Chief Financial Officers and their teams from a broad range of organizations across a variety of industries - from large, multinational corporations to government agencies and non-profits. His client list included The Coca Cola Company, Johnson & Johnson, and Dow Jones and Company.

Ed received his BA at Princeton University and his MBA at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

 

Patricia Harmon is senior consultant and Master Trainer for The de Bono Group. She is an organizational development consultant and works as a business analyst, innovative thinking consultant and executive coach. She has designed and conducted advanced thinking workshops for North American organizations such as American Re-insurance Corporation, Estee Lauder, J P Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Morgan Stanley, Motorola and New York Times.
Patricia helps organizations in their efforts to bring about change by examining business trends and extrapolating from them to help companies create value monopolies. Her approach includes the use of lateral thinking techniques to provide a deliberate method to think innovatively.

She also facilitates an Executive Leadership & Development process that is used widely by leading corporations in the U.S., Canada and Europe. This advanced assessment-based technology helps clients assess development needs through 360 degree feedback, link development to business strategy, implement customized training solutions, and measure results. Included in her assessment practice is her use of the Emotional Quotient Inventory (“EQ-I”), an assessment tool that measures emotional intelligence as a success factor in business with follow-up for customized development.

Previously, Pat was the founder and principal of a communications advisory service serving many of the Fortune 500 companies in North America, after having working in the Biotech/Pharmaceutical industry in Canada for ten years.

Patricia holds an MBA from the University of Toronto, Canada, an MA in Human Development, and has a Ph.D. in organizational development from The Fielding Graduate Institute. She also serves as an adjunct instructor at Cornell University.

 

Rick McKnight, PhD is a special consultant to The de Bono Group with a focus on integrating de Bono methods and Strategy Execution. He and James P.(Pat) Carlisle, President of The de Bono Group, collaborate to lead the program; Translating Strategy into Results. Rick supports individuals and organizations as they make accelerated strategic change. For 30 years, Rick has worked with clients providing a variety of services in support of strategy execution. Those services include executive coaching, leadership development, strategic visioning, top team alignment, and organization design.

Dr. McKnight’s work focuses on realigning internal functioning with the demands of the external marketplace. He is skilled in quickly enabling large numbers of employees to understand and embrace a company’s new strategy, in aligning work unit effort with the strategy, and in fostering cross-divisional collaboration.

Rick speaks and publishes on the topics of strategy implementation, leadership, and organizational change. He is the author of Victim, Survivor, or Navigator? Choosing a Response to Workplace Change and has recently completed a new book, Leading Strategy Execution, with Tom Kaney and Shannon Breuer. His writing has also appeared in journals including Training & Development, Supply Chain Management, Training Magazine, Human Resource Management, and The OD Practitioner.

Rick holds a Doctorate in Organizational Psychology from Temple University and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Washington. He also holds a BS in Industrial Design from Montana State University.

Rick was employed as a Senior Organizational Consultant for Sunoco and later Vice President of Organizational Consulting at Right Management.  His present work includes clients from a variety of Fortune 500 companies.

 

Riel Miller is a special consultant to The de Bono Group. He and James P. Carlisle co-lead a new Futures Creation program which integrates de Bono Thinking methods (Si x Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking) and futures methodologies.  Riel is one of the world’s leading strategic foresight designers and practitioners. He co-creates innovation, leadership and transformation with his clients. For over twenty-five years he has tracked and explored the emergence of post-industrial Learning Intensive Societies. Pioneer of a range of techniques for building Futures Literacy, Riel helps organizations to grasp the potential of the present for innovation and creativity. His learning-by-doing Futures Literacy approach enables organizations to “rigorously imagine” the future and make analytically robust and easily understood links between anticipation and action. His published work covers topics such as the future of: innovation, research, money, public services, education, the Internet, identity, information technology, the knowledge society, regional development, etc. Riel has an extensive international network and a solid track-record of creativity. He is an accomplished and experienced speaker, master of ceremonies, lecturer, workshop leader, and facilitator.

Riel is also currently a board member of the Association of Professional Futurists; a Fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation; a Faculty Member in The Master of Public Affairs at Sciences-Po, Paris, France; a member of the board of Strax, The Research Unit for Strategic Intelligence and Exploration of the Future, Helsinki University of Technology; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, UK; a member of the American Economics Association; and an Associate at Demos, London, UK.

Riel earned his Ph.D. in Economics from The New School of Social Research, a Masters degree from York College in Toronto, and a BA from Carleton University in Ottawa. He lives in Paris with his wife and children. He is widely published.

Please call us at 1-888-572-2190 or email us at info@debonogroup.com for more information or to schedule a program.