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| OUR PHILOSOPHY |
| OUR_HISTORY |
| OUR TEAM |
| OUR CLIENTS |
| OUR RETREAT CENTERS |
“Sylvia Lafair, author of "Don't Bring It to Work" recently spoke for the Morris County Chamber of Commerce. Our members were engaged and intrigued by her presentation. She provided tools for action and concepts of substance for deeper professional enrichment. I would recommend Sylvia for audiences of all sizes and disciplines Her topic crosses all job functions, and concentrates on how we can build strong relationships, regardless of job title."
Angele Kubisky
Executive Vice President
Membershp and Marketing
Morris County Chamber of Commerce
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Our Team |
| Our Founders |
| Sylvia Lafair, Ph.D., and Herb Kaufman have a shared vision for creating extraordinary leaders in the 21st Century — authentic leaders who dare to do it differently, leading from a place of honesty, integrity, and creativity. They believe there is a new and better way for leaders to gain strategic advantage and improve their bottom line: by learning to observe, understand, and transform behavior patterns that get in the way of success. |
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Sylvia Lafair, President of CEO. With a doctorate in clinical psychology, Sylvia has taught at Hahnemann University and has more than 30 years’ experience applying her expertise in human behavior and relationships to organizational environments. She is a highly regarded executive coach and leadership educator, having worked with all levels of organizational leadership at major global corporations, family firms, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and non-profit organizations. Her book Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success, is being published by Jossey-Bass.
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Herb Kaufman, Chief Executive Officer of CEO. Herb brings to the company more than 30 years’ experience as a corporate executive and experiential leadership educator. Herb has the ability to combine bottom-line thinking with attention to organizational health and well-being. He has developed and conducted adventure-based leadership challenge workshops and innovative executive programs. |
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Sylvia and Herb have spent their lives uncovering the universal building blocks of relationships that affect us from generation to generation. For 10 years, they brought leading-edge thinkers such as Deepak Chopra, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Matthew Fox, Sogyal Rinpoche, Pir Viliyat Khan, Huston Smith, Willis Harman, and many others to teach business and social service professionals about state-of-the-art programs in health and spirituality. Always adventurous, they have organized groups for experiential learning excursions where they hiked the Inca Trail, spent time with shaman in the Amazon Rainforest, did vision quests with the Native American elders in New Mexico, and studied with the Maori in New Zealand.
In all of their journeys to "the heart of the matter," Sylvia and Herb seek out that which connects us and bring this back into their work with the business world.
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| Our Team |
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Mary Jane Saras, LCSW, Vice President, Leadership Development for CEO. Mary Jane is a highly experienced educator, executive coach, and program facilitator, specializing in leadership, team building, conflict resolution, communication skills, workplace relationships, and cultural assessment. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she brings to CEO years of experience to help organizations grow in creativity and collaboration. Mary Jane leads CEO’s team of facilitators and consultants and oversees our program design. She holds a Bachelors degree in secondary education from Clemson University and a Masters in Social Work from Marywood University. |
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Jane Evans, Vice President of Operations for CEO. Jane provides oversight, support, and services to new and existing clients, manages our human resources, purchasing, budget and finance, payroll and scheduling. Jane has more than 31 years of business and leadership experience and has held a number of critical managerial positions in major companies representing a variety of industries including banking, federal healthcare, manufacturing, stock brokerage and leisure entertainment. |
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| Executive Consultants and Senior Consultants : CEO’s consulting faculty consists of talented, caring, highly experienced individuals with backgrounds in a broad spectrum of disciplines including health care, psychology, education, entertainment, communications, and human resources. With organizational experience ranging from global corporations to not-for-profit companies and entrepreneurial concerns, this multinational team has one very important thing in common: a belief in CEO’s philosophy, mission, and approach. In fact, many of our faculty members were inspired to work with us after experiencing the power of our programs first hand. |
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Michael L. Gooch, SPHR, Executive Consultant specializes in providiing practical, take-home information delivered in high-energy, high-impact presentations. Certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources, he has shown numerous organizations how to make the best possible human resources decisions. Using a "folksy" humorous delivery, Michael defines true human resources management as more art than science. His presentations relate to how ranching and management are intertwined and how we can obtain the goal of achieving a philosophical, holistic approach in our careers.
A consultant, speaker, published author, trainer and Fortune 500 human resources corporate director with over 30 years of experience, he provides practical knowledge with best practices research and delivers strategies and tactics that immediately spark positive results. |
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Dianne Moore, M.A., Senior Consultant, has served as a Human Resource Manager for 3M division, Senior Development Consultant, Manager of Team Building Services and Director of Organization and Talent Development for Imation. She helps executives solve complex issues, provides executive coaching, builds high-performance teams, and leads cultural change initiatives and teaches others to do the same. |
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Nancy Pennebaker, M.A., Senior Consultant, specializes in providing coaching and workshops for effective leadership and communication. She is an expert on non-profit organizational issues, having served as a senior director of a large 501c3 for 18 years. Nancy has a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and a Masters of Science in Journalism, which she has put to excellent use as a contributor to CEO's PatternAware™ News. She is a graduate of Stanford University's Institute for Executive Leadership and is presently in a doctoral program at Capella University focused on organizational development. |
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Joclyn Bines Goss, Senior Consultant, has dedicated the past 15-years in counseling, social work, and team-training to making a difference in people’s lives, from juvenile offenders to domestic violence victims to the staffs, volunteers, and clients of not-for-profit organizations. An experienced human resources manager, social worker, and academic administrator, she describes herself as a “compassionate, straightforward motivator” who uses skills honed in counseling and social work to introduce change, achieve consensus, and build team support. Joclyn is currently Executive Administrator for a non-profit ministry center in Philadelphia. |
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Mary Wilson, M.A., Senior Consultant, was head of People Development for McDonald's largest global supplier. She brings 30 years of experience as a business consultant, senior manager and human resources development professional. Her expertise is in the areas of leadership development, performance feedback, team-building, interpersonal communication and conflict management. She is an adjunct professor in the Leadership Development Institute at Northampton Community College and a certified mediator. |
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Catherine K. Afeku, Senior Consultant to Ghana, resides in the town of Kumasi, in the Ashanti district, Ghana. She brings more than 15 years of high-level office management, sales and financial experience in an international environment. Catherine has strong ability to instruct and facilitate programs and her organizational planning and public speaking skills can be seen in her monthly television program about business issues and economic development in Africa. |
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Bill Drexler, MBA, Senior Consultant, brings more than 25 years of Operations Management experience to CEO. He has worked with large and small companies in manufacturing, service, software, and government. Bill came to CEO with the realization that improving operations starts with improving how people work together. His skill in process improvement, assessing gaps in service, and developing effective solutions is an asset to any organization. Bill is a graduate of Juniata College and the Erivan K. Haub School of Business at St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia. |
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Bob Roberts, Ph.D., Senior Consultant, has more than 25 years’ experience in organizational change, management training, and strategic human resource management, with special expertise in building high-performance work teams. He has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Organizational Behavior, and he earned a Ph.D. in Organization Development from Benedictine University, where he served as a teaching assistant to Dr. Stephen Covey. Dr. Roberts has instituted management development functions at several major companies including McDonald’s Corp., where he was Director of Management Development |
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