Board Members

Executives, students, artists and writers, scientists, nurses, educators, physicians, and government officials have come together through Plexus. This diversity is reflected in the Institute's Board of Trustees.

Chair - Henri Lipmanowicz, recently retired from a distinguished career at Merck, he was president of the Merck Intercontinental and Japan Division, and a member of the Management Committee.

President - Lisa Kimball, PhD, as President and CEO of Plexus Institute, Lisa is helping Plexus increase its capacity to fulfill its mission. She is an entrepreneur with more than 30 years experience as an organizational consultant with business, government and non profit organizations. As CEO of Metasystems Design Group and Executive Producer of Group Jazz she supported the efforts of teams, task forces, communities and organizations and specialized in helping them leverage the power of new technology and social media. She earned her doctorate in educational psychology, cognition and learning conducting research on how senior executives use system thinking. She is active in online community work, organizational development and skilled in applying complexity-inspired principles. She currently serves on the Board of the Organization Development Network.

Secretary - Curt Lindberg, Chief Learning & Science Officer, is playing an important role in introducing complexity science concepts into health care thinking, organizational management and practice. He is the author of articles on complexity and co-author of the book Edgeware: Insights From Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders.

Treasurer - Ori Brafman is the coauthor, along with Rod A. Beckstrom, of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, a book that has been hailed as a must read by theoreticians and business executives. Brafman is a life-long entrepreneur whose projects include a wireless start up, a health food advocacy group, and a network of CEOs working on public benefit initiatives, which he co-founded with Rod Beckstrom. He holds BA in peace and conflict studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from the Stanford Business School. After five years of research, he came to the conclusion that organizations are like spiders or starfish. Traditional organizations, like spiders, have a rigid top down hierarchy, and new evolutionary organizations, like starfish, rely on the power of peer relationships. If the head of a spider is cut off, the spider dies. If a starfish's leg is cut off, the starfish grows a new leg, and the amputated leg grows a new starfish.

Steven Hagedorn, MD, a consultant in family medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, is an advisor on quality and leadership at Mayo, has been a central figure in the clinic's quality improvement work, and, for several projects, has served as the clinic's primary liaison to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He was awarded a Doctor of Management degree in 2003 from the University of Hertfordshire, in the UK, studying with Ralph Stacey.

Michael Monaghan is a veterinarian and former dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at University College Dublin. He raised the funds for and supervised the design and construction of a new veterinary school on the Belfield campus. His experience as dean and as chair of the advisory committee to the Minister for Agriculture during the 2001 Foot-and-Mouth Disease epidemic, provoked his interest in 'ordinary conversation' as a crucial part of the dynamics of organisational life. He is currently responsible for a substantial change project in the Sciences at the university.

Daniel Pesut, PhD, APRN, BC FAAN is professor and associate Dean for graduate programs at the Indiana University School of Nursing. He has more than 30 years experience in nursing practice, education, administration and research. He is board certified as an advanced practice psychiatric mental health nurse. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. He served on the board of directors of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (1997-2005) including a term as President 2003-2005.

Research & Action Councils

Research & Action Councils support the work of Plexus Institute by providing strategic guidance, social network connections, and leadership around major bodies of work. Current councils are focused on Plexus Institute initiatives on combating MRSA in Health Care, Nursing, Education, and Innovation. Current Council members include:

Sharon Benjamin, PhD is principal of Alchemy, a Washington DC based management consulting practice. She is a seasoned organizational executive who has served as a CEO and directed institutional development and finance. Her positions have included Vice President for Marketing for the-Rails to-Trails Conservancy in DC and Director for Major Gifts for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge MA. She earned her doctorate in organizational behavior from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati OH, where she has co-taught three leadership seminars. She has been active in the non-profit community, serving as Treasurer of the Board Earthworks, chair of the Board of Directors of Bluevoice.org, and a member of Oceana?s Board of Governors.

June Holley is president and founder of the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), a community economic development organization in southeastern Ohio committed to building a healthy and sustainable regional economy based on economic justice, self-determination, and respect for diversity. June was recently awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at the University of Kentucky. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Ohio Magazine, Entrepreneur, In Business and many other publications.

Keith McCandless, principal of the Social Invention Group, is a highly regarded consultant with expertise in strategic planning, leadership, and organizational development. He has been instrumental in the growth of the Conversation Café movement, which began in Seattle and is spreading internationally as a means of stimulating wide-ranging communication about socially vital issues. Keith helps organizations move forward through uncertainty with innovative approaches including scenario planning, generative dialogue, Chaordic design, communities-of-practice, appreciative inquiry, open space technology, positive deviance, graphic facilitation, and rapid prototyping.

Linda Rusch, RN serves as vice president of patient care services at Hunterdon Medical Center. Linda is widely recognized for her nursing leadership and pioneering work in bringing complexity-based management practices into health care. She received the New Jersey Governor's Award for leadership excellence.

Rita Saenz, the chief executive officer of the Academy for Coaching Excellence, in Sacramento, CA, recently served as the director of the California Department of Social Services, an agency with more than 4,600 employees and a $21 billion budget. She has previously directed the state's efforts to fight alcoholism and drug addiction, and has worked for the National Council on Alcoholism.

Arvind Singhal, PhD is the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Endowed Professor of Communication and Senior Research Fellow, Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies, University of Texas, El Paso. He is author of 130 peer-reviewed articles and eight books, including three co-authored with Professor Everett M. Rogers that have won national awards: Combating AIDS: Communication Strategies in Action (2003), India's Communication Revolution: From Bullock Carts to Cyber Marts (2001), and Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change (1999). Singhal's expertise is in organizing and communicating aspects of social change, and he has advised the governments of the US and Egypt, several private corporations, and international organizations including the World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, UN-FAO, UNFPA and USAID.