The faculty behind the rooms.

Dan is a consulting psychologist and Managing Partner at CLA, where he serves as trusted advisor to C-Suite executives, boards, and investors. Dan has extensive experience assessing executives for both selection and development. In addition, he works with senior leadership teams to optimize team performance and align companies around vision, mission, and strategy. Prior to co-founding CLA, Dan was a founding member of AlixPartners’ Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness practice, where he served on the Senior Leadership Team and led the team development practice.

Natalie is a Partner at Contemporary Leadership Advisors. She is an engagement and culture thought leader and evangelist, with keen insight into the depth and breadth of the employee experience. She has spent her career translating engagement and culture research into SaaS based software, helping organizations to achieve high performance. Natalie currently holds a joint position as Chief Workforce Scientist with Achievers, a global leader in employee experience solutions. Prior, she co-founded RoundPegg (acquired by Achievers). Natalie graduated from UCLA and the University of Denver with a PhD in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Strength-Based Psychology. She serves on several boards, advises senior executives, and is a regular contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review, including a TED talk on culture fit.

Jennifer is a highly accomplished member of Marshall Goldsmith’s exclusive group of MG100 coaches, scholar, and patented inventor of a coaching system for guiding interactions. She uses art and science to help leaders create the best work environments, innovative culture, and exponential growth. Jennifer was most recently Head of Global Talent Innovation for Capgemini in North America. Prior, she left a coaching legacy at IBM after 20 years, where she created and operationalized the largest internal coaching practice, designing the famous IBM Blue Core Coaching (BCC) skills training program.

Scott Slipy is a Partner with CLA that brings 25 years of global operating experience in both Fortune 100 and mid-sized, growth-phase, private firms. His firm, Momentum Global, was acquired by CLA in 2025. Scott has deep expertise and passion for working with boards and executive teams to execute and scale efficiently through superior leadership, culture, and talent practices. Scott has served in global HR leadership roles with Honeywell and Microsoft, as VP of Total Rewards at Cisco, and led the People function (CHRO) at two mid-stage FinTech firms. He holds an M.A. in Human Resources and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Jeff is an executive coach and organizational consultant with over twenty-five years of experience working with fortune 50 companies worldwide. He is CEO of Leadershift, Inc. a leadership development consultancy based in NYC and Amsterdam. Author of the best-selling book FLEX: The Art and Science of Leadership in A Changing World (PRH, 2020). He provides hundreds of workshops and keynotes each year for major corporates. An Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School for over a decade, Jeff is also the Executive Director of the Institute of Coaching, a McLean Hospital-based Harvard Medical School Affiliate. He holds a PhD in Analytical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an MBA from University of Maryland.

Mazher Ahmad is Senior Advisor at CLA and has over twenty-five years experience as a seasoned business executive and management consultant. Mazher has served in several leadership roles, most recently as the Chief Talent Officer for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, where he led global talent acquisition, talent management, leadership & organizational development, learning, culture, workforce planning and DE&I. He was a Principal at Philosophy IB. Mazher holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Anna Tavis is a Senior Fellow in Human Capital at The Conference Board and an Associate Professor of Human Capital Management at New York University, senior lecturer at Latin American Business School, and the Executive Director for the Innovation Radar Network at Executive Networks. Dr. Tavis is Senior Editor of People+Strategy Journal (HRPS, SHRM). Her latest articles "HR Goes Agile" (2018) and "The Performance Management Revolution" (2016) appeared in HBR and reprinted in HBR Must Reads. Two volumes of edited essays Point/Counterpoint were published by SHRM.

Michael “Dr. Woody” Woodward, PhD is an organizational psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting at New York University (NYU) where he is the lead faculty for the Master of Science in Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting (ECOC) program. He is author of the Amazon top selling career book The YOU Plan. He has worked with Bacardi, SAP, Grey Goose Vodka, and The Miami Herald. Dr. Woody served as a founding advisory board member at Florida International University Center for Leadership and as a thought leader in the IBM Smarter Workforce Futurist program.

Michael is the Dean of Biola University’s Crowell School of Business. Prior to assuming this role he was the Vice President of Talent & Development at Amazon Web Services, where he was responsible for global talent practices, leadership development, learning, organizational effectiveness, and executive recruiting. He was nominated to the Thinkers50 Radar class of 2020 for his work leveraging network roles in creating adaptive organizations: brokers, connectors, energizers, and challengers.

Steve is a Managing Partner at CLA where he works with clients at the intersection of technology and organizational effectiveness. Prior to co-founding CLA, he served on the Senior Leadership Team at AlixPartners and was Partner in charge of Human Capital Consulting at Philosophy IB. Steve built the firm’s first predictive people analytics applications, one of which, SYNAPP, was accepted into DreamIt Ventures. He holds an M.B.A. from The University of Virginia and an Ed.D. in Adult Learning from N.C. State University. Steve is co-author of The End of Leadership As We Know It (Wiley, 2023).

Dan Flowers is an Engagement Manager at CLA, where he brings his expertise in organizational effectiveness and talent development to bear to help leaders, teams, and organizations maximize their people power. Dan applies a consultative approach and systems thinking to design large-scale interventions focusing on leadership development, talent management, and culture and engagement. Prior to joining CLA, Dan wore a number of different hats at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, with a majority of his time embedded in the Organizational Effectiveness team. Dan holds a Masters of Science in Social Work from Columbia University.

Liz Weglarz is an Engagement Manager at Contemporary Leadership Advisors (CLA), where she focuses on leadership development, organizational development, talent management, and team and individual coaching with clients. Before joining CLA, Liz worked in human resources and led talent management initiatives at Yext, Inc., and Koios Medical. Liz is a Ph.D. candidate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Baruch College, CUNY, researching leadership, motivation, and emotions. She completed her B.A. in Psychology and Sociology and an M.B.A. in Human Resource Management at Stony Brook University.

Alessa Natale is an Engagement Manager at CLA, where she leverages her expertise in industrial-organizational psychology to empower leaders to transform themselves, their teams, and their organizations’ culture and employee experience. Prior to CLA, Alessa worked in Talent Management at Johnson & Johnson with a particular focus on Assessment, as well as in Pfizer’s Learning & Development practice. Alessa has experience coaching at a variety of levels, with a particular focus on leveraging assessments, interviews, and science-backed practices.

Jennifer Brown (she/her) is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, author, and diversity and inclusion expert who is deeply passionate about building more inclusive workplaces. As Founder and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting (JBC), she and her team design and execute inclusion strategies implemented by some of the biggest companies in the world. She is the bestselling author of Inclusion: Diversity, The New Workplace and The Will to Change (2017) and How To Be An Inclusive Leader (2019, second edition 2022) — a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Axiom Award Gold Medal winner. She also co-authored Beyond Diversity: 12 Non-Obvious Ways To Build A More Inclusive World.