OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Frank Barrett

Frank J. Barrett, PhD is a professor of organizational behavior and the faculty director of the Master of Science in Positive Organization Development program at the Weatherhead School of Management. He was previously a professor of management in the graduate school defense management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. From 2008-2010 he was a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and also the Harvard Program on Negotiations. He also is a faculty member in human and organizational development at Fielding Graduate University. He held the Boer and Croon Chair of Change Management at Tilburg University (Netherlands) and has served on the faculties of Katholieke University of Leuven in Belgium, Penn State University Behrend College, Case Western Reserve University, Fielding Graduate University and Benedictine University.   

He received his BA in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame, his MA in English from the University of Notre Dame, and his PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University.  

Frank consulted to various organizations including Harvard University, Boeing, U.S. Navy, Ford Motor Manufacturing Division, Ford Motor Information Strategy Group, Bell South, Granite Construction, GlaxxoWelcom, General Electric, British Petroleum, Nokia, Johnson and Johnson, Price Waterhouse Coopers, BBC, The Council of Great Lakes Governors, Omni Hotels, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and University Hospitals of Cleveland.   

Frank has written and lectured on social constructionism, appreciative inquiry, organizational change, jazz improvisation and organizational learning. He is the author of Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Yes to the Mess has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese, and Danish and recently won the Best Leadership Book of the Year from the Business Leaders of France. He is co-author, with Ron Fry, of Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity (translated into Spanish, Portugese, Chinese, Korean, Dutch). He has published articles on metaphor, masculinity, improvisation, organizational change and organizational development in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science; Human Relations; Organization Science, and Organizational Dynamics as well as numerous book chapters. He wrote Generative Metaphor Intervention: A New Approach to Intergroup Conflict (with David Cooperrider) which won the award for best paper from the Organizational Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management in 1988. He won the best paper award again in 2003 for Planning on Spontaneity: Lessons from Jazz for a Democratic Theory of Change, a paper he co-authored with Mary Jo Hatch. He is co-editor of Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Transformation (Vermont: Greenwood Books, 2001).  

He is also an active jazz pianist. In addition to leading his own trios and quartets, he has traveled extensively in the United States, England, and Mexico with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

Alan Brenner

Alan Brenner is a retired Silicon Valley Software Executive, with extensive experience building innovative software products and leading high growth businesses. Alan has held senior executive positions at Sun Microsystems and BlackBerry, currently serves on the boards of early stage startup companies, and consults to large and small software focused businesses. In his work with software businesses Alan aims to support them in creating a safe, inclusive container that embraces then leverages diverse backgrounds and views to foster innovation. Alan’s appreciation for team culture and, especially, the fabric of relationships within and between teams has brought him to the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland where he has has completed The Gestalt Training Program and the Gestalt Professional Certified Coach (GPCC) program.

Alan holds a B. A. degree with Honors in Philosophy from York University and a Masters in Computer and Information Science from Cleveland State University. After living for 20 years in Silicon Valley, Alan recently relocated to the Cleveland area, where he lives with his wife in Cleveland Heights.

jessica colombi - Board Chair

Jessica Colombi has 20 years of experience in the public sector, influencing and executing systems change in complex institutions. She is inherently collaborative and enjoys partnering with people to make organizations “hum”.

Most of Jessica’s career has been in higher education and policy development and implementation. Currently the Executive Director for Public Policy and Economic Advancement for Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Jessica is implementing a Center for the Future of Work, which will conduct research and shape policies to advance education as part of the college's efforts to address social determinants of work. Jessica is also responsible for assisting the college meet "the promise" of the historic and recently passed City of Cleveland Community Benefits Ordinance, which clarifies and enforces requirements for the public benefit from public improvement projects that qualify for city financial incentives.

Jessica was recruited by Cleveland City Council leadership to serve as the Director of Policy & Research for Cleveland’s 17-member City Council, and prior to that, served as the Executive Director of Career Services at Cleveland State University, where she led the re-design and implementation of a new organization, executing significant changes in strategy and organizational culture. Before her time on a college campus, she served as Chief of Staff to the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents (now the Ohio Department of Higher Education), where she worked as part of a leadership team that influenced and changed public policy and the perception of higher education across the state of Ohio.

Jessica has completed several of The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland’s exceptional experiential trainings and is a Gestalt Professionally Certified Coach (GPCC). Also a Gestalt-trained facilitator, Jessica has facilitated racial equity trainings for corporate executives, non-profit board members, healthcare professionals, and K-12 teachers and administrators. Jessica is also part of a small team that has developed an Ohio Attorney General certified cultural competence and de-escalation training for law enforcement and has trained over 1000 officers across two states.

She has a bachelor’s degree in Art History from John Carroll University and a master’s degree in Psychology with a certification in Diversity Management from Cleveland State University. Jessica and her husband live in the city of Cleveland and enjoy marathon viewings of The West Wing.

Tony Jack

Anthony “Tony” Jack has a BSc in Psychology and Philosophy from Oxford University, and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from University College London. He trained in Neuroscience through postdocs at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, London and the Dept. of Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis Medical School. Since 2007, Tony has been leading neuroimaging research as the principal investigator of the Brain, Mind and Consciousness lab at Case Western Reserve University. Since 2015, he has been teaching a popular Science of Happiness course and has also been engaged in executive education and executive coaching (BCC). Tony has trained extensively in Gestalt Therapy, Coaching, Mindfulness, Breathwork, and other therapeutic modalities such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy. In collaboration with Richard Boyatzis, one of the founders of research on Emotional Intelligence, Tony has conducted the only brain imaging studies of coaching. Since 2016, he has been a researcher in CWRU’s Coaching Research Lab. In 2022 Tony was appointed to the Beamer-Schneider Chair in Ethics, with responsibility for the ethical education of undergraduates across the campus. He is an Associate Professor in the Dept of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, with secondary appointments in the Departments of Psychology, Neurology, Neurosciences and Organizational Behavior.

Tony is currently working on a book about his key findings from the last 15 years, provisionally titled "Revolution in the Mind." His work is strongly interdisciplinary, lying at the intersection of Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience. Tony has published in top journals in each of these disciplines. Tony’s principle academic contribution has been to develop Opposing Domains Theory, a new model of the mind informed by research in Cognitive Network Neuroscience. This theory recognizes the divide between analytic and empathic modes of understanding, and has profound implications for wellbeing, ethical leadership, spirituality, and consciousness.