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The Stratam Group: Core Team

imageChristopher Davis, Managing Director of the Stratam Group, has almost three decades’ experience improving how organizations, teams, and individuals work. Chris’s engagements produce breakthrough results for clients through the alignment of leadership, strategy, processes, and culture. He is also one of the original developers of Commitment-based Management, one of the major management innovations of the past thirty years.

Chris’s clients have ranged from Fortune 500 companies to startups. He works with clients to arrive to a clear interpretation of the challenges; to align around a compelling strategy; and to put in place the programs and practices to make the changes happen. Examples include:

  • For IBM, Chris led a project to reorganize the national spare parts organization, realigning it to lines of business, reducing its size by 25% while increasing internal customer satisfaction.
  • At Citibank, he led the team that established the program management practices for a $350 million software project using Commitment-based Management, the success of which was written about in The Complexity Advantage by Kelly and Allison.
  • For Voith Siemens Hydro, Chris led the project to redesign the processes and culture to align the company to a new global strategy, resulting in the company becoming the most profitable company in its industry.

Other clients have been ABB, Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO, Warner Music Group, The Discovery Channel, ADP, Johnson & Johnson, CEP America, SGI, Verigy, Theravance, plus numerous smaller life sciences companies.

In his work with executive teams and boards, Chris is recognized for producing an environment in which “difficult conversations” happen surprisingly easily, leading to greater ambition, collaboration, and resolve for the team. Chris is also an accomplished instructor, having led courses on management and leadership skills for over 10,000 people.

Chris has spoken at complexity conferences on Commitment-based Management and has guest lectured at the London School of Economics and London Business School. He has a BA in philosophy from Pomona College and an MA in the philosophy of language from International College. He worked closely for 17 years with Dr. Fernando Flores, the originator of Commitment-based Management.

imageCharles Follett, Director and Chief Designer, is one of the developers of the process design methodology founded on Commitment-based Management. Over 25 years, Charles has redesigned and mobilized business processes in energy, semiconductor, banking, insurance, health information exchange, automotive, and information technology, throughout North America and Europe. His designs are recognized for their elegance and simplicity in transforming complicated working arrangements into aligned, purposeful and efficient processes — often with unprecedented results.

Charles ensures that designs translate to the bottom line by directing the implementation of supporting infrastructure, training, coaching of process champions, measurement, and process governance. Clients include:

  • General Motors, where the redesign of the GM-EDS IT services delivery process reduced cycle time by 73%.
  • Wells Fargo, where cycle times were reduced by 70% for escalated call center issues.
  • A division of UnitedHealth Group, where missing processes were designed for rapid growth in securing, executing, and supporting new client contracts. The initiative included the development of a custom application for forecasting capacity requirements.
  • Advantest-Verigy, where the redesign of large scale IT projects resulted in unprecedented breakthroughs in cycle time, cost, and client satisfaction.
  • Voith-Siemens Hydro, where the redesigned global engineering and construction processes helped propel the company to its market leading position.

Charles has an undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Northeastern University, and an MBA. When not designing processes or researching new developments in process design, he can often be found on a golf course, where he maintains a low single-digit handicap and continues the pursuit of excellence, friendship, and love for the game.
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imageJorge L. Titinger, Director and Executive Coach is a former C-level executive with 30+ years of leadership experience in large, multi-billion-dollar organizations operating in major markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He was recognized as CEO of the Year for Operational Excellence by CEO World Awards and one of the Top 100 Latinos in Technology by HITEC for 5 consecutive years.

Jorge’s areas of expertise include strategy development, M&A, general management, field operations, field service, supply chain management, manufacturing, and P&L management.

Most recently, Jorge was the president, CEO and board member of Silicon Graphics (SGI), one of the leading global companies in high performance computing. Prior to SGI, Jorge served as president, CEO, and board member of Verigy, a provider of automatic test equipment (ATE) to the semiconductor industry. Jorge also held senior executive positions at FormFactor, KLA-Tencor Corporation, Applied Materials, Hewlett-Packard, MIPS Computer Systems, Insync Systems, and NeTpower.

Currently, Jorge is a strategic advisor to HPE, KLA-Tencor, Transparent Business, an e-Commerce company in the remote-work management and coordination market, and Empresa Editora el Comercio (Peru). He also serves in board positions at XCERRA, CalAmp, AGP, Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, and Stanford Children’s Hospital.

Jorge was educated at Stanford University and holds a Master of Science in engineering management in addition to a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford. He is a member of the Alliance of CEOs and the Center of Corporate Innovation. In his free time, Jorge can be found on a golf course, soccer field, or in the backroads of Northern California on his Harley.
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imageMary Ann Ireland is a talented coach and trainer, known for her ability to listen sensitively, engender trust, and produce meaningful results with her clients. Whether working one-on-one or with teams, Mary Ann offers creative insights and practical skills that make a lasting difference for others. She has worked with VPs, directors, and managers in a wide variety of companies to resolve current challenges and attain new levels of success and fulfillment in their careers.

As a consultant, Mary Ann has worked with multiple pharma/biotech companies including Johnson & Johnson, Astellas, and Theravance, plus leading companies in other industries including US Bank and TrendMicro. In 2003, Mary Ann founded the Biotech Organizational Learning and Development group (BOLD), a best practice group for HR professionals in the life sciences industry (www.growBOLD.com), which she continues to lead.

Mary Ann’s previous corporate experience includes a successful 17-year career in sales, marketing and product management in the life sciences industry, including working with teams of scientists and engineers to develop and manage the protein electrophoresis product line. As a strategic account manager working for $3.4B asset management company, Mary Ann was recognized as the top performer in the country for the life science division, exceeding her quota by $10M.

Mary Ann holds a degree in organic chemistry from Brown University and a MA in Organizational Psychology with coaching certification from JFK University. She is a master somatic coach (MSC) through the Strozzi Institute, and is certified in management and leadership practices through the Institute of Generative Leadership.
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imageOlga Stephan excels at working with executives, managers, and their teams to enhance team performance and increase project and departmental results. Her success is measured in terms of projects delivered on time, delighted stakeholders, and proud team members. While producing outstanding team results, her coaching with individual team members infuses her clients with greater ambitions and capabilities for the future.

Olga has 18 years of coaching experience in Commitment-based Management, as well as a background in information technology. She has worked across North America and Europe, consulting to Fortune 1000 companies in healthcare IT, semiconductor, auto, energy, construction, insurance, banking, and accounting. Recent clients have included Verigy (now Advantest), where she improved the performance of both the COO’s and the CIO’s teams through implementation of new team management practices and individual coaching, and Axolotl (now OptumInsight) where she produced breakthrough results with the CEO’s team through team and individual coaching and the establishment of a “war room” to ensure on-time delivery of strategic initiatives.

Olga has a BS in computer science from the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is a proud dual citizen of Canada and the United States and brings her love of travel and cultural diversity to her work.
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imagePhil Hallstein is a highly experienced organization designer, creator and deliverer of training and culture change programs, and an executive coach. He is dedicated to helping managers, teams, and businesses build the culture and practices they need to achieve new levels of success. He has helped multiple organizations produce better-coordinated leadership teams, faster cycle times, more responsive business processes, and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

For over 30 years Phil has helped executives and managers create business cultures that foster greater accountability, commitment, and ownership. At Capital One, he designed and led multi-year leadership and cultural values programs that ultimately reached 8,000 associates. As a co-founder of Business Design Associates, an international consulting firm, he designed and conducted consulting engagements to improve teamwork and business processes around the world: ABB in Sweden, Agip Petroli in Italy, and Ontario Hydro in Toronto. As head of consulting for Action Technologies, an early leader in workflow-enabled software, Phil led successful process redesign programs for Pacific Bell, Warner Brothers, and Saturn.

Phil started his career as a professional balloonist in New York. He became a certified FAA examiner and opened one of the first FAA certified Balloon Inspection Facilities on the East Coast. He currently lives with his wife and two daughters in Marin County, California.
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imageMargaret McIntyre specializes in creative collaboration, having been a thinking partner for over 35 years to executives, managers, and teams as they tackle important challenges. She brings broad perspective and a questioning mind to help provoke people beyond their traditional thinking. She helps reveal underlying assumptions and missing viewpoints that can block innovation solutions. Her rigor and tenacity help bring successful resolution to complex problems.

Margaret has consulted to senior executives in a variety of industries, starting her consulting career with McKinsey & Company. Long-term projects include working with the senior IT team of Ford Motor Company on alignment, productivity and effectiveness, and with senior executives at BellSouth on leadership development. She has also consulted with numerous entrepreneurial companies on business strategy, process improvement, knowledge management, and organizational effectiveness.

In addition to her business experience, Margaret spent five years as a senior project manager for a global health organization where she worked on global road safety, multidrug resistant TB and collaboration in global health. She coauthored a book, Real Collaboration, on lessons learned from joint projects in global health that require multi-sector cooperation and coordination. She also facilitated several multi-sectoral meetings on bioterrorism response preparedness for CDC and NACCHO.

She has worked with Commitment-based Management for over 25 years and also draws on a number of disciplines including strategic thinking, organizational learning, change management, communities of practice and somatics. Margaret holds a BS in chemistry and an MBA in marketing.
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imageHarold Gray has over 30 years’ professional experience in the design and creation of a wide range of technologies and platforms in support of Commitment-based Management. He has particular expertise in Microsoft environments and has created award-winning solutions utilizing a wide range of Microsoft Products and Tools—most notably Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Exchange, SQL and Web-based environments and tools.

Harold’s many satisfied clients including General Motors, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, the US Department of the Army, McDonnell Douglas, and NASA. Technology solutions include: business process management (BPM) applications for managing IT service delivery: commitment-based management systems; office automation; education and distance learning systesm; plus legacy systems integration.

Harold founded Technology Integration, Inc. in 1994, a firm specializing in the application of technology to Commitment-based Management. Harold holds a BS degree in industrial engineering and a MS degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has numerous industry certifications and is a published author.
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imageScott Karstetter brings his deep expertise in product life cycle management to our process design and mobilization projects. Scott had a successful 20-year career at IBM, in which he was involved in all aspects of the product life cycle, ranging from product development to servicing and retirement of products. He led numerous national and international product launches through market research, strategic planning, conceptual product description, architecture, design, manufacturing, marketing, and service and support. Scott combines his extensive experience with our Commitment Process Design approach to create and implement insightful, streamlined, and highly coordinated processes in product development, sales, operations, and service.

Scott has also held executive positions with a number of non-profit and civic organizations where he provided financial, organizational, and community relations guidance and decision making.

Scott has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University. He also obtained a number of certifications in IBM’s ongoing education program, including Management Training and Project Management Professional (PMP), ISO900, Six Sigma and other quality programs. He has a passion for many recreational sports ranging from scuba diving to snowboarding but his favorite pastime is golf.
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German RojasGerman Rojas has over 20 years of experience on conceptualizing and leading game changing initiatives for large and medium companies in México, Latin America and Europe, including a wide variety of industries: manufacturing, information technology, telecomm, financial services, food & beverage, government, logistics, construction materials, and housing.

  • Design and implementation of innovative customer value propositions, including mobilizing the organization and third parties to deploy new business processes, practices and tools required to deliver more compelling offers.
  • Organizational alignment and operational efficiency, building trust and effective coordination across organizational boundaries (internal functions, different regions, organizational levels, vendors and customers.)
  • Commitment-based process design and implementation, including organizational change, management practices and skills, accountability and customer service KPI´s, with special focus on corporate management and cross functional end-to-end customer service processes.
  • Leadership and management skills development: commitment-based management, teamwork, customer service driven culture, service innovation, trust, effective feedback, change management, executive coaching and mentoring.

German has a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Chile. He has worked along with the developers and early practitioners of Commitment-based Management, then applied and expanded the discipline in the fields of management, business process and strategy. German lives in Monterrey, México, with his wife and two kids.
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“Our company wanted assistance launching a new product offering, which required the involvement of marketing, IT, and operations, and similar groups from three partner companies. And we wanted it done on a very tight timeline.
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We brought in Chris Davis and his team to assist us in mobilizing the project. They helped us quickly establish the timelines, roles and responsibilities, project office, and management practices, and worked closely with the team to provide the day-to-day discipline and focus to maintain momentum in the face of numerous challenges. The result was that ADP launched a new suite of offerings in record time: 16 weeks after starting the effort."

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—Vic Saliterman,
—Senior VP, Marketing
—ADP


 

"Jean Dunham's coaching with me and our president has been instrumental in
our management turnaround, focus and communications."

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—Andrea Bordenca,
—COO, DESCO
—Diagnostic Equipment
—Service Corporation

© 2007 The Stratam Group