We have dedicated much of our professional lives to understanding the impact of human nature at work. Our mission is to use what we have learned to bring attention to a set of powerful, generative, yet less understood forces that are critical to accessing the full human potential and spirit at work.
With over 60 years of combined global experience with Teams & Emotional Intelligence, our goal is to build highly effective teams that are joyful and exciting, that attract the best talent, and are a competitive advantage for the organization as it moves into the Digital Age.
Naveed Khawaja
Co-founder, Chief Vision Officer & Coach
Dr. Steve Wolff
Co-founder, Chief Culture Officer
Dr Wolff has over 20 years of experience researching teams and helping them significantly improve productivity. He has found that the shift to the Digital Age requires a fundamental change in perspective; what worked in the past will no longer provide a competitive advantage. To meet the challenge of the Digital Age, he has created a fusion of his Team Emotional Intelligence framework, originally published in Harvard Business Review, with principles from Agile. His combined framework, called Inspired Teams, not only creates a high-performance, collaborative team but also helps Leadership/Project Teams meet the challenge of execution speed and the need to generate innovative ideas that disrupt the status quo. Dr Wolff has assisted forward-thinking Leadership Teams around the globe who were ready to move out of their comfort zone, make the fundamental shifts needed for success in the Digital Age, and achieve breakthroughs in performance.
Richard Eppel
Co-Founders
Mr. Eppel has been a business leader in the hi-tech industry for over 30 years. Specializing in corporate turnarounds, he has brought his high energy, results-oriented approach, and powerful analytical, strategic and communications skills to bear on a wide range of organizations.
His consistent focus is on developing team-based, strategically oriented organizations capable of effectively responding to a rapidly changing marketplace. Prior to founding Strategic Momentum, Mr. Eppel enjoyed a distinguished career as an engineering executive in a Fortune 75 company and as a CEO of several high-technology companies.
Richard Eppel has been a business leader in the high-tech industry for over 35 years. Specializing in corporate turnarounds, he has brought his high energy, results-oriented approach and powerful analytical, strategic and communications skills to bear on a wide range of organizations. His consistent focus is on developing team-based, strategically oriented organizations capable of effectively responding to a rapidly changing marketplace. Leveraging his experience as a turnaround CEO, Richard partners with CEOs and their teams to unlock the enterprise value obscured by organizational misalignment and dysfunctional conversations.
Richard works with clients in a variety of industries. His primary clients include technology, manufacturing and engineering services companies. Other types of clients include construction companies and health care organizations.
Richard helps clients dramatically improve their innovation and execution excellence throughout their organization. Richard takes a systems approach and focuses on aligning vision, strategy, operational processes and culture with an emphasis on aligning the culture to achieve the desired results.
Richard strongly believes that culture, how people think and act, is the key performance diver. Richard’s commitment is to achieve a 10X improvement in enterprise value within a 5 year period. Achieving this goal usually requires a significant shift in the mindset and actions of the team, which Richard accomplishes by changing their conversations. Ultimately, these shifts result in significant improvements in all the key processes driving value creation.
Richard received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. In addition to his consulting practice, Richard is a licensed M&A professional. Before becoming a turnaround CEO, Richard led a 550-person computer development division within a Fortune 75 company. Richard has taken advanced courses in organizational transformation and process re-engineering as well as pursuing continuing education through industry seminars, management, and leadership courses.
Richard has held board seats with privately held companies, the American Electronics Association, and the San Diego World Trade Center.
He cares about making a difference in the health and wellbeing of companies and their people and making a significant impact on organizational and individual performance, by improving how people cooperate, collaborate and coordinate action together.
Richard is committed to developing organizational cultures capable of producing extraordinary results. In the process of helping CEOs and their organization significantly increase their company value, he is also committed to growing the people so the organization does not outgrow them.
Mitch Simon
Co-Founders
Mitch’s expertise lies in the coaching and cultivation of high-performing leaders, teams, and companies.
His unique skills stem from 30 years of building a leadership curriculum, facilitating leadership and strategy retreats, and coaching executives and their teams to accelerate growth, build team alignment, and generate energetic and purposeful cultures. Mitch brings humor and creativity to his engagements through his work as a standup comedian and an improviser at the National Comedy Theatre in San Diego.
He leads the conversation around creating great leaders and teams from anywhere in the world as the host of the podcast, “Team Anywhere.”
Ram Srinivasan
Co-Founders
Ram Srinivasan has a very unique distinction of being the first person in North America(and the second person in the world) to hold the coveted Certified Scrum Trainer (CST From Scrum Alliance) and Professional Scrum Trainer (PST from scrum.org) certifications.
In addition to these, he is also a Certified Team Coach (CTC from Scrum Alliance) Certified Agile Leadership Educator (CAL-E from Scrum Alliance), LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) Friendly Scrum Trainer, and a Professional Coach, and Facilitator who specializes in coaching teams and organizations. His mission is to help his clients build great organizations and he does this by focusing on people, process, and product development.
Ram started as a developer and later moved to hold various roles including software architect, Project /Program Manager, and executive coach. He has coached, mentored and consulted from teams to organizations of all sizes across many industries (finance, insurance, retail, banking, media, telecom, etc.). This depth and breadth of experience give Ram the ability to view clients’ challenges from different perspectives and provide pragmatic solutions making him a sought-after Agile Coach.
Ram’s past engagements include organizations like 411.ca, AT & T,
Baker Hughes GE, Bank of America, Blue Cross Blue Shield, CGI, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), CIBC, Cisco, Dow Jones & Company, IBM, Infosys, Lenovo, Oracle, Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation, PGi, PNC Bank Rutgers University, Sapient, State of Texas, TELUS, T-Mobile, TJX, Tesco, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Vistaprint, Veteran’s Affairs , Wall Street Journal, Walmart, and WorldBank.
Ram holds multiple certifications in Agile/Project Management (PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM, CSPO, CSP, PSM-I, II and III, PSPO-I, IC Agile Certified Professional). “Continuous Learning” is one of his personal values. He is currently pursuing a course on Leadership and Vertical Adult Development. Few of his other interests include emotional and social Intelligence in organizations, Applied neuroscience for organizational and culture change, Neuroscience based high-performance teams, Neuro-Leadership Development, Systems Thinking, complex adaptive systems, and understanding Human Systems in organizations.
Ram believes in giving back to the community. He has led the webinar team for PMI-Agile Community of Practice. He also frequently talks at local meet-ups, PMI chapters and conferences (Agile 201X, Agile India, Agile DC, Mile High Agile 201X, ADC conferences, PMI Symposiums and Professional Development Days, etc.) on various Agile and Lean topics.
Audrey Wyatt
Co-Founders
Audrey Wyatt has worked as both an Entrepreneur and an Intrapreneur including Corporate Controller at a startup software firm and Marketing Communications Manager at a Management Consulting firm both located in Dallas, Texas.
In a Learning and Development partnership with Simplified Coach based in Silicon Valley, Audrey traveled throughout the United States and facilitated over 100 workshops for a Fortune 100 Tech Company.
Audrey specializes in the facilitation and coaching of leaders and teams to enable perpetual co-creation in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.
Audrey serves on the Advisory Board of Global Intrapreneurs Institute based in Brisbane, Australia.
Marcelle Bastianello
Co-Founders
Marcelle works with her clients on mission-critical issues. In the process, her work supports the organization in developing its capacity to adapt and grow in a volatile, ambiguous world and to be successful in the long term.
Marcelle brings to her work a unique blend of organizational psychology, dialogic OD, a background in complexity science, operational business experience, and an understanding of Agile processes.
Marcelle prefers to begin work with a client by developing a deep understanding of the organization. Through a series of organic interviews, she uncovers underlying patterns that relate both to organizational decision-making and a series of elements scientifically shown to support success and growth. An understanding at this level is the basis for her work with leadership and the organization.
Marcelle works with the whole organization as needed, convening Open Space meetings to focus on an issue or opportunity critical to the organization. She works with leaders, sharing how to form relationships that support success in a data-driven, complex world. She coaches them on being mentors to others in the organization so that all contribute pertinent information and expertise as needed.
Marcelle works with leaders to untangle problems in communication in teams, to intervene effectively to produce positive change in both the group’s dynamics and its outcomes, and to help people in the room alter their behavior to better reach their aspirations. Marcelle recognizes that creativity is essential if progress is to be made in any area of business. New ideas form the basis of change in every field. She works with groups introducing and increasing thinking on the right side of the brain from which creativity and insights spring.
Her industry experience includes telecommunications, advertising, manufacturing, retail, banking, healthcare, fishing industry, industrial laundry, and insurance.
David Miles
Co-Founders
David A. Miles, Ph.D. is a leadership author, experienced trainer, and professional speaker who is passionate about developing effective leaders at all levels. He is the Founder & Principal at Dr. Dave Leadership Corporation where he helps organizations create “AMAZING” teams with their proprietary “Insights Suite”.
Link to his Video
https://bit.ly/3A8x0yR
Dr. Dave holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Organizational Leadership with a concentration in Human Resource Development. His research compared the learning style of adult learners to their effectiveness as leaders.
He has conducted training and presented professionally across the United States at numerous different venues, events, and conferences. Dave has had the privilege of speaking by invitation on the topics of leadership and human resource development in both Oxford, UK on multiple occasions and in Singapore.
His clients range from hotel chains including Marriot and Wyndham Grand, major manufacturing firms, to non-profits and healthcare systems including Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has most recently presented at several statewide healthcare conferences and ran workshops for senior executive teams for a large regional non-profit organization – all by invitation.
Dr. Miles’ credentials also include being a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), a Board member of the local NSA-DC chapter; a John Maxwell Certified Speaker, Coach, and Trainer; a Certified Stakeholder-Centered Executive Coach through Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, and certified in multiple behavioral assessment suites through TTI Success Insights.