GRACE under Pressure John Baldoni

John Spencer is the chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy. He is the author of Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership and Social Connections in Modern Warfare. This book has been endorsed by Generals David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal and HR McMaster. John also serves as a colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard, as the director of Urban Warfare Training. John served twenty-five years on active duty in the U.S. Army as an infantry soldier and is a highly decorated combat veteran. https://www.johnspenceronline.com

Cher Murphy is an anthropologist, an executive coach, and a reticulist. Cher has spent the last 20+ years building teams in scaling portfolio companies for Venture Capital firms and Private Equity firms, or Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 organizations. Her expertise is advising leaders where a talent strategy is required to thrive in uncertainty and the quickening pace of change. As a C-Suite Advisor on Talent, Cher partners with CEO’s, Executive Teams, and Boards to align the people strategy to the business strategy. She utilizes both leading-edge innovations in people strategy and executive coaching to enable companies to surpass positive earnings cycles while building resilient cultures. Having consulted for Nike, Amazon, McKinsey & Company, Ford Motor Company, Wells Fargo, Patagonia, McDonald’s and Microsoft, Cher has partnered with large global organizations reaching an inflection point and needing leadership transformation.  Working with Haven, WeWork, Chewy.com, and Opendoor during an extreme period of scaling, Cher supported leadership with building teams, strategy, and leadership capability. Cher was the Chief People Officer for a global creative agency and the Chief Talent Officer for a research think tank that studies the people practices of high performing organizations. Prior, Cher was a founding Partner/Managing Director of multiple executive search boutiques focused on Human Resources and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion leadership. Cher is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and is an Adjunct Professor for the MBA program at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Cher is on the Board of Directors for AID International, a nonprofit that focuses on enabling Haitian communities to become self- sustainable and an advisor for HR Transform.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/chermurphy/ 

Mark C. Crowley spent 25 years as an executive leader in the financial services industry before leaving to write the original version of this book. His last role was as senior vice president, and national sales manager, for investment products at one of the America’s largest financial institutions where he was named leader of the year. Mark is a regular contributor to Fast Company magazine, and his work has been published by USA Today, the Huffington Post, Seattle Times, Forbes, ThriveGlobal, Reuters, The Great Place To Work Institute, and Gallup. He is also the host of the Lead From The Heart podcast. With an audi- ence in nearly 160 countries, he hosts discussions with world-class leaders whose work in some meaningful way reinforces the leadership philosophy and practices that comprise this book. Mark is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s “100 Coaches” community and a graduate of the University of California—San Diego and the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. His website is www.markccrowley.com, where you’ll find new articles and information to help you put Lead From The Heart concepts into practice. It’s also where you’ll find every episode of the Lead From The Heart podcast. www.markccrowley.com  

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds degrees from Concordia University (Montreal), the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published more than 25 books and 100 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and on the global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. His latest projects include the leading podcast, The Sydcast, that uncovers and shares the stories of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life, as well as a new series of online courses based on his life’s work available at Coursera. https://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/sydney-finkelstein/

Garry Ridge is chairman of WD-40 Company where he served as CEO for more than two decades. He is responsible for developing and implementing high-level strategies, all operations, and the oversight of all relationships and partnerships for the company.   Garry is passionate about the learning and empowering organizational culture he has helped establish at the WD-40 Company, and his vision and leadership have positively impacted the WD-40 Company in both measurable and immeasurable ways. Garry joined WD-40 Company in 1987 and has held various management positions in the company, including executive vice president and chief operating officer, and vice president of international. He has worked directly with WD-40 Company in over 70 countries. Garry is an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego where he teaches leadership development, talent management, and succession planning in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership program. In 2009, he co-authored a book with Ken Blanchard outlining his effective leadership techniques, titled “Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy called ‘Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A.’ ” A native of Australia, Garry holds a certificate in Modern Retailing and wholesale distribution and a Master of Science in Executive Leadership from the University of San Diego. www.thelearningmoment.net

Phil Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics' Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre, and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times. His nonfiction work won the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category of Cultural & Historical Criticism in 2018. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the Brookings Institution'sBrookings Essay series. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University. His debut novel,Missionaries, was released in October 2020 with Penguin Press.   His latest book, a collection of essays, is Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. His website is www.philklay.com . 

Wendy Smith is the co-author of Both/And Thinking. She earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, and is currently a professor of management at the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics and Co-director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware. Wendy’s research focuses on strategic paradoxes – how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory agendas. She studies how organizations and their leaders simultaneously explore new possibilities while exploiting existing competencies, and how social enterprises simultaneously attend to social missions and financial goals. Wendy teaches leadership, organizational behavior and business ethics. She has taught MBAs and undergraduates at University of Delaware, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania – Wharton. Wendy was awarded the University of Delaware MBA Teaching Award in 2016. Wendy has also taught executive and senior leadership teams how to manage interpersonal dynamics, emotional intelligence, high performing teams, organizational change and innovation, managing in times of crisis, and managing strategic paradoxes.. www.bothandthinking.net

Marc D. Braun, former President of Cambridge Air Solutions, loves growth. As Marc says, “I love the uncomfortable feeling I get when stretching and growing as a leader. I love the uneasy feeling when businesses grow beyond their current capabilities. And I love being close enough to others to experience when they courageously grow. That's why I Coach CEOs and Senior Executives to lead fearlessly and to build courageous cultures of growth.” Marc’s life purpose is to encourage (breathe courage into) others to become everything they were created to be. This passion has led to a lifetime of pursuing challenge after challenge, testing his potential and encouraging others to do the same.   For more than a decade Marc had the honor of stepping into leadership of Cambridge Air Solutions, an engineering and manufacturing company focused on providing market-leading HVAC technologies for the Commercial and Industrial Markets. Over the last decade, the team delivered 4X revenue growth and 10X profitability growth. Along with the financial gains, Cambridge became one of the most studied mid-sized manufacturing cultures in the US. Over 5000 people traveled from around the world to visit the Courageous Culture and be encouraged and inspired by the Cambridge employees. In July 2021, he stepped down as President after helping the owner transition to an internal successor. www.marcdbraun.com

Dan Pontefract is the founder and CEO of Pontefract Group, a firm that improves the state of leadership and organizational culture. He is the best-selling author of four books: LEAD. CARE. WIN. How to Become a Leader Who Matters, OPEN TO THINK, THE PURPOSE EFFECT and FLAT ARMY. A renowned speaker, Dan has presented at four different TED events and also writes for Forbes and Harvard Business Review. Dan is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business and has garnered more than 20 industry awards over his career. Dan is honoured to be on the Thinkers50 Radar list. HR Weekly listed him as one of its 100 Most Influential People in HR. PeopleHum listed Dan on the Top 200 Thought Leaders to Follow and Inc. Magazine listed him as one of the top 100 leadership speakers. His third book, OPEN TO THINK won the 2019 getAbstract International Book of the Year. LEAD. CARE. WIN. was a finalist for the same award in 2021. More information at www.pontefractgroup.com

Dr. Angela D. Thomas, also known as "Dr. A", has sustained success in her career as a healthcare executive and university professor. Her established career spanning over 20 years has led to national and international awards, presentations, and academic publications. As a Christian woman, wife, and mother, she dedicates much of her personal time to her family and to ministry in her local church, where she serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors, Women’s Ministry Director, and Director of Education. Learn more at www.DrAngelaDThomas.com.