Open Application: 2022 evolve Executive — Leading with Purpose

Cortland Dahl is interested in exploring the interface between the body, mind and brain, and especially in the question of how various forms of meditation can help us cultivate positive qualities like mindfulness, compassion and resilience. His current work focuses on studying the psychological and neural mechanisms of different families of meditation practice. He is also the creator of the Healthy Minds program, a well-being training program that integrates insights from scientific research with a comprehensive path of contemplative training. He is the Chief Contemplative Officer at Healthy Minds Innovations and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Tergar International, a global network of meditation groups and centers.

Davidson received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology in 1976. Davidson’s research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices. He has published over 440 articles, numerous chapters and reviews and edited 14 books. He is the author (with Sharon Begley) of "The Emotional Life of Your Brain" published in 2012 and co-author with Daniel Goleman of “Altered Traits” published in 2017. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and appointed to the Governing Board of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) in 2018. In 2014, Davidson founded the non-profit, Healthy Minds Innovations, which translates science into tools to cultivate and measure well-being.

Robin Denise Johnson earned her doctorate in Organizational Behavior at Harvard. She wrote an award-winning dissertation on diversity, work-life balance and empowerment. Her other degrees are in International Relations and World History from Brown University, and an MA in Social Psychology from Harvard. She integrates her research-education with her professional experience in her multicultural leadership development programs.

She is an educator, author and coach — working with people managers and leaders in major corporations, non-profits, and academia. She continues to work with UCLA-Anderson and UVA-Darden as faculty / faculty director in a number of executive education programs, and was a visiting professor with Ozyegin Graduate School of Business in Istanbul, Turkey.

Prior to graduate school she worked overseas in international finance with Chase, McDonald’s Corporation, and Lloyds Merchant Bank.

Robin Denise Johnson was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and attended McKinley Tech High School. She worked summers at the Smithsonian Institute, went overseas for the first time as an AFS exchange student in Belgium where she attended the Koninklijk Atheneum in Tielt, Flanders, Belgium and returned to Brown University to complete her undergraduate university studies. She has maintained her strong commitment to intercultural understanding throughout her career. As an African-American female child of Civil Rights activists, she is also committed to diversity-inclusion for personal as well as equity reasons.

As part of her work-life balance, she is a dancer, developer of Cardio-Tribal Style (CTS) dance, and director-choreographer of Zaltana.

Robin has been called a Renaissance woman. She is a naturally interdisciplinary — bringing together and synthesizing ideas from her wide-ranging interests and experiences.
As a result, she is comfortable with a people from a wide range of socio-economic and educational strata— and has traveled, worked, or lived in over 70 countries at last count. While fluent in her native tongue — English — she also speaks-studied several other languages (French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Malay, and Turkish) and continues to listen-dance to world music.

An author and leadership expert, Eric Martin’s quest to 'democratize leadership' has taken him around the world—from the White House to the foothills of the Himalayas. Eric founded and leads Adaptive Change Advisors (ACA), which is the premier mission-based Adaptive Leadership organization worldwide. ACA’s mission is to put leadership tools that drive change into the hands of anyone who seeks meaningful outcomes. Eric has been published in Fast Company, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Environmental Leader, and the book Your Leadership Moment. After a five-year stint in Japan as a translator early in his career, Eric considered a shift to holistic medicine. In a fortunate twist, he landed instead in the executive office of a Rockefeller-affiliated nonprofit working at the extreme margins of human development and systems change. There he began a long, transformative journey with one of the key architects of Adaptive Leadership. The journey continues...

Abby Fifer Mandell is the Executive Director of the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business and has taught human-centered design to thousands of students and professionals. As a design strategist, she helps organizations navigate transitions and find a clear path forward. Abby lectures internationally and leads design workshops and training for mid-size and large social impact organizations. She won the 2018 Academy of Management Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award for her work with undergraduate students. Abby holds a M.A. in education and received a B.A. in Religious Studies and American Studies from the University of Virginia. She is a Wexner Heritage Fellow and serves on the advisory boards of United Parents and Students and Swipe Out Hunger.

<p>Trina Olson is a two-time executive director with a track record of building and retaining teams across race, gender, and sexual orientation to achieve shared goals. Trina has built an impressive portfolio of national and regional policy and advocacy experience, centering a multitude of progressive issues, including healthcare, hunger, a living wage, immigration reform, transgender-inclusive non-discrimination, and more. Trina has made her home in eighteen U.S. cities, including Seattle, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. A queer, white, cis-gender woman, Trina is motivated by the ways job creators could be addressing the intersection of identity and workplace more creatively and consistently to address the pervasive inequities still at play across race and gender, in particular.</p>

Andy is a founding member, partner and chief performance officer of Liminal Collective. A globally recognized leader and expert in the field of elite human performance, his experience runs the gamut of human performance — the research and training of all aspects of human performance for individuals, teams, and large organizations in sport, culture, military, and business settings. His work to demystify talent has led him on a mission to hack human performance and to share his learnings for the betterment of society.

<p>Alfonso Wenker is a seasoned executive leader and facilitator of transformational organizational culture and strategy campaigns. Serving in major leadership roles within the field of philanthropy, Alfonso has been responsible for driving sector and systems-wide change to diversify both perspective and personnel in order to better steward resources responsible for underwriting major movements. A Latinx, gay, cis-gender man, Alfonso was born and raised on the west side of Saint Paul, MN, to a Mexican mother and white father. Consequently, Alfonso has often been the ‘first’ or ‘only’ person on a team who is a Person of Color, gay person, or both throughout his career. He has experienced, first hand, how the attempted diversification in the U.S. workplace has both made strides and done accidental harm.BeforeTeam Dynamics, Alfonso was Vice President for the Minnesota Council on Foundations, where he grew the organization's racial equity strategy. Alfonso is a highly sought-after speaker and executive coach. Alfonso’s leadership has been recognized as a 40 Under 40 Awardee, Facing Race Anti-Racism Award and as a Policy Fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.</p>

Monica Banks supports programming and content development for both the Professional Learning and Family Philanthropy Team. She manages event coordination for signature programs such as Fundamentals of Effective Grantmaking and the Family Philanthropy Conference.

Monica graduated with a BA in Economics from Occidental College. She is a first-generation college graduate who is passionate about issues pertaining to health care access, intergenerational trauma, mental health and immigration.

Christine Essel joined SCG as President and CEO on February 1, 2013. As president, she sets the strategic direction and priorities for the organization, overseeing programming, communications, member services and public policy. Prior to joining SCG, Essel held leadership roles in the government, corporate, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, where she has shaped legislation and public and corporate policy. She brings a wealth of experience to SCG including a deep knowledge of the region and a passion for forging creative solutions to complex community challenges, along with extensive relationships and expertise in corporate philanthropy, finance, real estate development, government and community relations. For over three decades, she worked at Paramount Pictures, serving as Senior Vice President, Government and Community Affairs, a department she built from the ground up. In that role, she was responsible for the studio’s philanthropic efforts and for shaping Paramount’s civic presence while managing all political and legislative activity, corporate social responsibility and fundraising activities. During her tenure she was also responsible for overseeing in excess of $500 million in real estate development projects on the studio lot.

Most recently, she served as CEO for the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA), with an annual budget exceeding $600 million, a staff of 260 employees and 32 project areas throughout the City of Los Angeles. In response to a statewide call by the legislature, Essel's leadership helped lay a critical foundation for the dissolution of the agency, leading to a successful redistribution of resources for schools and local governments, while ensuring the completion of many crucial affordable housing projects and other developments vitally important to the economic growth of the region.

She has been named to numerous Boards and Commissions over the years, serving as chair of the California Film Commission, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, the Hollywood Community Advisory Council, Alternative Living for the Aging and Central City Association. She also served as Vice‐Chair of the California Workforce Investment Board and FilmLA and was a member of the powerful Los Angeles World Airports Commission, Grand Avenue Project Joint Powers Authority and Los Angeles Development Fund. Essel has been honored by esteemed organizations such as City of Hope, National Women’s Political Committee, Alternative Living for the Aging, Weingart Center Partners, Central City Association and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. In 2016, she received the Leader of the Year Award from the Southern California Leadership Network. She has been named to the Non‐Profit Times “Power and Influence Top 50” for the past two years (2016 and 2017).

As Vice President, Professional Learning & Family Philanthropy, Kameron plays a significant leadership role in developing and implementing SCG’s Professional Learning strategy and programs for members. This includes managing the day-to-day operations of SCG’s Professional Development portfolio, Family Philanthropy offerings, and relationships with peer and affinity groups. Kameron is also responsible for ensuring high quality professional learning experiences are made available to enable SCG members to continually increase their knowledge, skills, competencies, career development and networks.

Kameron is a member of The Prytanean Women's Honor Society, the Alliance for Women in Media, and is a member of the Board of Directors for Central City Neighborhood Partners (CCNP), a leading non-profit organization committed to advancing systemic change to benefit low-income communities through collaborations. Kameron graduated from The University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor's Degree in Mass Media Communications.