Michelle Albaugh is a highly regarded leadership and effectiveness coach. She joined the LOC faculty in September 2015 after earning her
Michelle spent the first 10 years of her career working for a startup in the telecommunications industry, first in a technical capacity and then in establishing client relationships and crafting creative communication solutions for business and government, before shifting to academia. Her research thus far has centered on life narratives at the intersection of personal faith and political ideology.
Ahmmad Brown is a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) scholar and practitioner with more than a decade of experience developing and implementing structures and processes that support equity and inclusion in organizational settings.
Ahmmad’s academic work includes two streams of research. In the first, he draws on the social capital, inclusion, and identity literatures to examine Black students' social experiences and feelings of belonging in historically white colleges. In the second, he uses survey and interview methods to understand the antecedents of race-based allyship in organizational settings.
As a practitioner, Ahmmad is president and co-founder of Equity Based Dialogue for Inclusion, LLC (EBDI). Through EBDI, Ahmmad works with organizations across industries to conduct equity assessments, provide strategic support for the development and implementation of equity and inclusion initiatives, and promote intergroup dialogue. As a senior advisor at Working IDEAL, Ahmmad conducts qualitative and qualitative research for organizations to support their strategic DEIJ efforts. He also serves on Merit America's board of directors. Prior to his current work, Ahmmad worked in social sector consulting and college admission.
Ahmmad holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Harvard Business School, an MA in Sociology from Harvard University, an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University, and a BA in Sociology & Anthropology and Japanese from Swarthmore College.
Samir Desai is vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and People Strategy for NorthShore University Health System. In this role, he is responsible for creating an engaging, healthy, inclusive environment for all team members and patients, and embed equity in everything we do. His team, as part of human resources, drives this through engagement and experience, DE&I, wellbeing, and using analytics to develop high impact talent strategies across the employee experience
Prior to this, he was the VP for Talent Management and Organization Development, responsible for developing the leadership and skills of NorthShore physicians, nurses, other clinical and administrative staff, leading learning, leadership development, culture, and performance management.
Corey Flournoy brings 30+ years of experience and recognized leadership in diversity and inclusion programming, strategy development, executive coaching and employee engagement for multi-national corporations, non-profits and educational institutions. Since 1995, Corey has been a founding partner, consultant and trainer for Creative Outreach Consulting LLC. In 2019, Corey became a Certified Professional Diversity Coach through CoachDiversity Institute, accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Corey Flournoy is the VP of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Aurora, the company delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Priorly, Corey was Groupon’s first Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity. In October of 2020, Corey was named as one of North America’s Most Influential D&I Leaders – 2020 by Hive Learning and included in PerformanceIN List of the The Top 50 Industry Players from 2020 .
In addition, Corey served as the founding director of the Illinois Center for Urban Agricultural Education. During his 30-plus years of experience in agricultural education, he served as the first African American and non-rural president of the National FFA Organization and its 450,000-plus membership.
Jeff Merrell is Associate Director of the Master's Program in Learning & Organizational Change (MSLOC). Jeff leads the educational technology strategy for MSLOC and the program's use of social collaboration and social media technologies. His professional background includes experience as both a consultant and
He was
Kimberly Scott is Assistant Professor and Director of the Master’s Program in Learning & Organizational Change (MSLOC) at Northwestern University. She came to Northwestern with over 10 years of management and consulting experience in a variety of mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies. Her work focuses on improving workplace environments and practices that foster employee wellness, learning
She has designed and taught courses that include learning and performance improvement, leadership development and change management. As an independent consultant, Dr. Scott has designed leadership development and organizational change initiatives in addition to coaching leaders and action learning teams.
Ryan Smerek has researched, taught, and published in the areas of learning and new executives, decision-making, innovation, and organizational learning. He is the author of Organizational Learning and Performance: The Science and Practice of Building a Learning Culture. In the book, Ryan explains mindsets that foster learning, how “big picture thinking” or understanding the “why” behind our actions fosters learning, and the social norms needed to foster innovation and creativity.
Before coming to Northwestern University as Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Academic Affairs in MSLOC, Ryan taught organizational behavior at Hiram College. He also worked at Denison Consulting — a culture and leadership assessment firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Teresa Torres is a product discovery coach who helps teams gain valuable insights from their customer interviews, run effective product experiments, and drive product outcomes. She teaches teams how to connect the dots between their research activities and their product decisions. Before becoming a coach, Teresa was VP of Products at AfterCollege, an Internet startup that helps college students find their first job. She was CEO of Affinity Circles, an online community provider for university alumni associations and a social recruiting service used by Fortune 500 companies.
Teresa has a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University and an MS in Learning and Organizational Change from Northwestern University.
Judah Kurtz is a trusted advisor, coach, strategist, and consultant who is passionate about driving transformative growth and sustainable change. With a career spanning over 25 years, Judah has partnered with mid- and senior-level leaders and their teams across multiple global industries and sectors, through his internal organizational work, external consulting roles at Accenture and BPI group, and nearly 20 years in private practice. He brings deep expertise in coaching, leadership and team development, learning, and strategic change, with a concentrated focus on helping his clients uncover their hidden potential and barriers to success to facilitate meaningful, high-impact outcomes.
As adjunct faculty at Northwestern, he teaches and coaches students in the executive education (ELOC), master’s degree (MSLOC), and organizational and leadership coaching certificate (OLCC) programs.
Judah holds both a master’s degree in Learning and Organizational Change and
Bob Corbett is an internal Professional Certified Coach (PCC) focused on leadership and executive coaching with EY. Prior tEY my background encompassed 20+ years in HR leadership, Consulting and Executive Coaching in multiple countries and across multiple industries, including, healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, energy and financial services. I'm certified in a range of coaching and assessment tools. I help clients discover and intentionally live their purpose both personally and professionally.
Beau River is a Partner at Vantage Leadership Consulting, Beau is committed to building transformative relationships with clients based on mutual trust and a deep understanding of their business needs. His coaching is fundamentally focused on bringing the best out of people by helping them adapt their leadership to operate in new and enhanced ways to lead with equal parts humility and confidence. With a background as a professional athlete and former member of the United States Squash Team, he brings a personal perspective on what it takes to address psychological barriers, build upon natural abilities and lift performance to new levels.
His professional experience reflects his appreciation of diversity, with clients from the middle market to family/privately operated companies and Fortune 500 organizations. He has supported leaders across functional disciplines and worked in a range of industries. As an adjunct faculty member, Beau has been involved with coaching at Northwestern University for seven years. He has also presented his research on high-potential leaders and the future of executive coaching at conferences hosted by the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Society of Consulting Psychology, and SHRM. He frequently publishes his insights and is a regular contributor to Forbes in the area of leadership strategy.
Margaret Sullivan is an independent coach and consultant specializing in helping individuals, groups, and organizations identify, clarify, design, and implement effective, sustainable paths forward. Prior to launching her practice, she was the Senior Advisor – Organizational Effectiveness at Wiss, Janney, Elstner and Associates, Inc. She began her career at Accenture as both an internal and external consultant. Her expertise and interests include organization and leadership development, knowledge sharing, community building, sustainable changes, and career transitions. Margaret is certified in facilitation, career coaching, Hogan Assessments, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Her coaching training includes Co-Active Coaching (CTI), Immunity to Change, Quiet Leadership (NeuroLeadership Institute) and EQ-i (High Performing Systems).
Formerly an award-winning writer and video producer, Karen redirected her career mid-life to focus on coaching and adult human development. She enjoys helping people fashion lives that they love and are proud to lead, and is fascinated by the story of how we become the people we are. Karen earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and her first Master’s degree from Northwestern University. She earned her subsequent Master’s degree and