Session

We are very fortunate to welcome Dr Bob Johansen as a keynote speaker in 2024. A renowned thinker, speaker and writer, Bob has spent the past 50 years working as a professional futurist at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, the longest running futures think tank in the world.

In this session, Bob will give a taste of the best tools for future-back thinking. In particular, he will introduce the skills, literacies, and mindsets that are most important in order to think like a futurist as we design tomorrow’s organizations. Bob will draw from his two current books: Full-Spectrum Thinking and Office Shock: Creating Better Futures for Working and Living, and make specific links to the practice of Organization Design and the organization of the future.

Bio

Institute for the Future Distinguished Fellow

Bob began working with IFTF in 1973 and has worked as a professional futurist for nearly 50 years. The author or co-author of 12 books and a frequent keynote speaker, he recently completed a trilogy that details the types of leadership that will thrive in the next decade. The New Leadership Literacies focuses on essential practices of leadership, picking up where Leaders Make the Future, its more skills-oriented precursor, left off; in 2020, he published Full-Spectrum Thinking, which focuses on the need for a future-back mindset. His latest book, Office Shock: Creating Better Futures for Working and Living, is co-written with IFTF colleagues Joseph Press and Christine Bullen.

Bob holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois (which he attended on a basketball scholarship), an MDiv from Crozer Theological Seminary (where Martin Luther King, Jr., attended divinity school), and a Ph.D. in Sociology of Religion from Northwestern University

Session

As organization designers most of us subscribe to the idea of systems thinking but how do you apply it to the complex problems we face? In this practical session, learn how to evolve your organization design approach by integrating systems thinking habits and tools. We will ground systems theory in tangible frameworks so you can analyze and optimize organizations and see them as interconnected ecosystems (forests) rather than fragmented parts (trees). We will discuss the mental models embodied by systems thinkers, enabling you to shift perspectives and see relationships, patterns, and potential as you design. Part theory, part practice, this session will give you tools to design more effective and sustainable organizations, whatever your starting level of experience as a practitioner.

Bio

Beth Gunderson is the Founder of Minikahda Partners, an organization and talent architecture firm specializing in organization design and enterprise transformation initiatives. Beth is also an Executive Fellow at the University of Southern California (USC) – Center for Effective Organizations, where she instructs in the areas of organization design and change. In addition she is an adjunct professor within the MBA program at École Polytechnique Fédérale (EPFL), Lausanne Switzerland.

Prior to founding her own firm she spent over 35 years in the consumer products industry in a variety of roles. She brings a true systems approach to design based upon the circuitous career path she took through Research and Development, Supply Chain and Human Resources. A majority of her career has been focused on large scale global organization design projects as well as building capability across the enterprise. In her current design consulting work she has spanned the spectrum from fast moving founder based organizations to global matrixed organizations changing their business models.

Beth received her BS from the University of Wisconsin in Industrial Technology – Package Engineering and her MA in Human Resource Development – Organization Development from the University of St. Thomas.

Session

Amy Kates will share Kates Kesler’s experience in scaling to a practice of 150 organization designers and embedding the methodology into Accenture, a global firm with over 700,000 employees. She’ll show how they rapidly accelerated practitioner development while staying true to the principles of our discipline. Join us in a thoughtful conversation about the future of our field informed by recent learnings in our global, dynamic environment.

Bio

Amy Kates is co-founder of Kates Kesler Organization Consulting. Accenture acquired Kates Kesler in 2020 and Amy’s focus over the past four years has been to build a global team of 150 practitioners all using Jay Galbraith’s Star Model.

Amy was first introduced to ODF when Kathy Molloy invited her to attend the conference in Salem in 2003. Amy and Kathy co-chaired the 2006 conference in Charleston and Amy was a board member in the mid-2000s. She has attended and presented at many of our events and has ensured her firms have been regular conference sponsors.

Amy is co-author of five books on organization design with Jay Galbraith and Greg Kesler. Amy and Greg’s latest book is Networked, Scaled, and Agile: A Design Strategy for Complex Organizations (Kogan Page, 2021). She is currently helping the Accenture team write a new book on the common design challenges large companies face. She is also the host of the LinkedIn learning video course on organization design.

In addition to consulting, Amy has been a visiting fellow to the government of Singapore and has taught at Cornell University and the Danish Technical University. She currently serves as a board member of Educate!, the largest education social enterprise in east Africa, and is building a farm-stay guest house in Rwanda.

Session

Technology is fast becoming an essential component of the Organization Designer’s toolbox. It allows us to glean far deeper insights into the true underlying dynamics of an organization and to more easily generate innovative new models for effective work. With these technologies evolving so rapidly, new capabilities are emerging that we could not have thought possible just a few years ago.

Our mix of technology partners will share their own stories of how they got into this space and why various organizations are reaching out to them. The interactive discussion will be anchored in the challenges and realities that practitioners face in their day-to-day work. How can technology improve the process and the impact of OD? How might practitioners need to change? Where is technology leading us and where do we want to lead the technology? Drawing directly on the audience’s hopes and fears, this session promises to be a lively and stimulating exchange of lessons learned, current trends and future predictions that will challenge, inspire… and maybe even nudge the course of tech’s development.

These “technology sponsors” are part of a special focus at this year’s conference, to ensure our organization design community is best prepared and more knowledgeable than most about what is possible and what might be best for their specific client or organization. We also expect the incredible insights and needs that our community shares with our technology partners enables them to provide even better solutions going forward!

It doesn’t stop here either! There will be an interactive session immediately following the panel to engage and hear from the entire conference community. Also, our technology partners will each have a dedicated space in the foyer throughout the conference, so you can stop by, engage in deeper 1:1 conversations, see some demos and get to know them better.

Session Details

Right now, the world is abuzz with opinion and conjecture about the future of AI. It’s a highly debated field that can be confusing and overwhelming. This session will cut through the noise to focus on the relevance and benefits of AI to OD. It will examine the type of relationship we need to have with AI, and will explore the ways AI can be deployed to bring new insights and perspectives to progressive design.

Phanish is a leading academic in the field of organization design who studies how AI relates to organizational form and function. He, along with his collaborator Dr. Nghi Truong, has developed ‘Eunomicon’, a Large Language Model trained to offer suggestions for organization design based on the microstructural approach he developed with colleagues. Eunomicon can act as a design co-pilot, offering suggestions and expanding options, explaining its reasons and also can critique your designs.

Phanish will begin by discussing the role of AI in OD and then move on to demonstrate Eunomicon with a practical problem statement. We will hear about real-life examples of Eunomicon’s application, including at the United Nations where Phanish serves as a Special Advisor on Organization Design & Analytics on a pro-bono basis. The session will end with a Q&A.

This will be an engaging and interactive session, leaving you with a much clearer understanding of AI in the context of Organization Design.

About The Speaker

Phanish Puranam is a Professor of Strategy, and the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Strategy and Organisation Design at INSEAD. He is also a former chair of the Organizational Design Community (ODC).

Phanish’s research in organization science focuses on how organizations work and how we can make them work better. His current work focuses on different ways in which intelligent algorithms relate to organizations, in their roles as tools (eg, machine learning applied to organizational data), team-mates (eg, human-AI collaboration) and as templates for organizing (eg, blockchain, metaverse).

Phanish is a leading author of several books relating to organizational analysis and design, and the future form of organizations.

Session Details

Interaction Models visually depict the back-and-forth “interaction” needed between groups in the future-state organization designs. The step-by-step visual depiction of the future state transports our teams into the future, allowing them to more clearly envision what they need to build. We have found that this scenario based approach answers the question “how will it work?” in a practical way that helps lead to successful designs. This modeling workshop will prepare you to lead grounded and equitable conversations that are a critical part of any organization design effort. 

In this session we will:

• explain the interaction model, including the approach and benefits
• outline the strengths arising from its emphasis on collaborative co-creation
• be clear about where and how interaction models begin and end
• equip participants to utilize the model in their own organizations

About Our Speakers

Dr. Kevin Anderson is a consultant in organizational design and performance, leadership, change management, and cultural initiatives. Kevin has over twenty-five years of experience in designing and delivering high impact, global organizational solutions. Organizations he has worked with include Thomson Reuters, City of Minneapolis and Accelare Consulting where he worked in health care, retail and education. He is currently a senior organizational development consultant at Cargill. 

Kevin has a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelors Degree in Speech Communications and Political Science from Macalester College.

Kevin is the author of Organization Design Made Easy and The New Workplace: Performance Through Virtual and Hybrid Teams. In this latest book Kevin’s chapter on  Building Organization Design includes a section on Interaction Modeling. Briana Bradley provides the chapter reflection and deep dives on our favorite topic of ours!

Session Details

Fact or Fiction? Wade through the hype of Generative AI, AI, automation, and technology and their impact on the future of work and organizations. Explore how organizations are taking different paths to adopting and embedding artificial intelligence into their organization and the potential for driving meaningful disruption to business models and outcomes. Learn how data and artificial intelligence impacts how we think about and approach organization design.

In this session we will provide you with the knowledge you need to understand the implications of data and technology on work at the individual, team, and enterprise level. You will be introduced to frameworks and tools you can use to identify opportunities to design a data and tech enabled organization.

The session is centered around an application exercise of using data and technology to rethink how to build organization capabilities by infusing data and technology into Jay Galbraith’s Star Model and the impact on how we think about structure, process, metrics and rewards, and talent.

About The Speaker

Tom Falkowski is Managing Director in Accenture’s Operating Model and Organization Design Group and Global Lead for Op Model and Organization Design Digital Disruption.

Tom consults with CEOs and other senior leaders on their enterprise operating model, helping them to puzzle through the relationship between global business units, global functions, and geographies. More and more those conversations include how data and technology will Impact their operating model and ways of working.

He is a member of Accenture’s Generative AI Center of Excellence with a focus on how data and AI impact talent and organizations and co-author of Accenture’s research on the Tech-Powered Operating Model

Tom brings a unique perspective drawn from his broad business, leadership, and consulting experience. As a business leader, Tom has led sales organizations, product groups, consulting organizations, and international teams. As a consultant, he has partnered with over 150 organizations on a range of topics including organization design and effectiveness, digital disruption, executive and leadership assessment and development, learning and performance strategy and change management/culture change.

Tom is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and holds a Masters degree in Information Resource Management from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a Bachelors degree in Finance from Boston College.

Session Details

We have all had soul-crushing moments at work.  And we all know that soul-crushing isn’t good for business.  This session explores how to design organizations that thrive by intentionally minimizing the soul-crushing.

Businesses thrive when they use a soulful lens.  But often we leave soulfulness to chance, by putting it in the hands of individual personalities, or trying to preach it into the culture.  As org designers we have the power to build soulfulness right into the system.  In this session we’ll explore how we can make soulfulness very practical by weaving it into the way we design organizations.

You’ll learn to apply a soulful lens to Org Design:

1. Learn what a Soulful Lens is.
2. Identify and attend to underlying organizational pain.  
3. Uncover soul-crushing elements in an organization’s current design.
4. Incorporate soulfulness into the Org Design.

About The Speaker

Jardena London is CEO of Rosetta Agile, Author, Speaker, and Business Transformation Consultant

• Jardena is on a mission to create thriving workplaces that also feed our souls.
• Jardena is a Business Transformation Consultant, author, keynote speaker.
• She’s been a consultant for 27 years, serving as founder and CEO of RosettaAgile.
• Jardena has spent the last 15 years focusing on Business Agility and Transformations, sparking bold, disruptive thinking with corporate clients.

Her recent book, Cultivating Transformations:  A Leader’s Guide to Connecting the Soulful and the Practical has been described as “the book you buy and carry around with you everywhere.”

Session Details

Organization Design professionals have been talking about organizational health for years, but could we even recognize a healthy organization? What is a healthy organization anyway? Can anyone actually measure health? If so, would it make any difference to business leaders?

USAA’s internal organization design team believes that we have those answers and more! We’ve developed an internal Organizational Health Assessment that relies on existing data and metrics to not only gauge an organization’s health but also strategic alignment—something that leaders care about a lot! Join us in our session to learn how we did it and how you can, too!

About The Speakers

Whit Laga is the executive over organizational design, health, and effectiveness at USAA. Whit is a tenured organization design professional with expertise in strategy formation, organization design, facilitation, transformational success, and C-Suite and Sr. Executive coaching.

Prior to joining USAA, Whit was an external consultant and a lecturer at Purdue University working in a variety of industries and solving diverse design problems. Whit’s training and expertise is interdisciplinary and comparativist, and he seeks to bring unique viewpoints to problems through diverse cross-pollination of ideas, industries, disciplines, and cultures.

Theresa Garcia joined the USSA Organization Health & Effectiveness team in 2022 following nearly eighteen years at Boeing leading Organization Design Consulting for new and joint ventures, global mergers, and defense services.

Theresa holds a Master in Organization Development (MSOD) and Executive Certificate in Applied NeuroLeadership from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Arizona. She holds multiple certifications in organization behavior and large-scale change. In addition, she is an ICF certified Professional Certified Coach, speaker, and author in next generation leadership.

Mark Robinson recently joined the USAA Organization Health and Effectiveness team at the end of 2023, yet has been practicing organization design for over 10 years as an internal and external consultant. He spent 15 years with Harley-Davidson, where he helped implement a global expansion strategy, including the start-up of Asia Pacific and Latin America regional offices and redesign of the entire global field organization.

Mark is an ODF board member, honored to give back through volunteering to this community. He has an MBA and a Master’s degree in Organization Development from Bowling Green State University and a business degree from the University of Maine.

Session Details

“He aha te mea nui o tea o? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata”.

What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.

We welcome you to learn a little about Aotearoa New Zealand and how we might evolve organizational design and change frameworks and practices to better align to the known and long held traditions of indigenous people. There are many proven frameworks that already exist and may not need a western developed method to be applied.

This is a case study of how we might listen to truly understand, reach a shared vision and then let go of our methods to co-create a way forward that is more intrinsically rooted in respect for different cultures we are aiming to empower and serve.

Though based on examples from the Pacific, this session will enable practitioners to consider their own experience when working in different cultural environments and how they adapt their methods to include what already works.

About The Speaker

Jane Judd has 20+ years international experience in organisational design and change. Jane describes herself as a strategic change facilitator and recognises her design skills are core to all aspects of change.

Jane designs, organisations, business models, service delivery models, frameworks, roles and change. Jane is passionate about the employee and customer experience and ensures the voice of the customer and employees are integral to any design work.

In recent years Jane has seen an opportunity to better contribute to elevating diverse voices through design and change – with a specific focus on the indigenous voices of the Pacific. Jane has learned a lot about adjusting organisational design and work practices to ensure they fully meet the needs of different cultural audiences.

Jane has followed the Organization Design Forum for many years and attended the conference in Michigan in 2017. She is excited and delighted to share insights with this community this year.

Jane’s change expertise is internationally acknowledged, and she has served as the Global President and Chair of the Change Management Institute for eight years between 2015 and 2023.

Leon Takimoana is Pouwhakahaere Whanake (deputy Chief Executive People and Culture) at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.  Te Wānanga o Aotearoa was established in 1984 and has grown to become one of New Zealand’s largest tertiary education providers, operating in over 80 locations throughout the country. A truly inspiring, innovative, and award-winning organisation that solely exists to transform individuals, families, and communities through education.

Leon has extensive experience in human resources and supporting organisational design across the education, not-for-profit, corporate, and professional services sectors throughout Australasia and the South Pacific.  In recent years, Leon joined SPC International, a group of 20+ Pacific Countries who join collaborate to maximise the impact of aid and development funding from around the world to increase social, economic and climate resilience of the Pacific Island communities. This involved first- hand experience of adapting western frameworks and policies to environments with cultural differences.

Leon returned to New Zealand to lead the People and Culture function with Te Wananga o Aotearoa.  Leon has demonstrated a commitment to transforming the People and Culture frameworks and policies to represent Te Ao Māori. (a Māori world view) to enable positive and engaging cultures aligned with driving improved organisational performance.

Session Details

Everyone has heard the hype around GenAI, so much so that it already feels a bit like yesterday’s news. But GenAI is here today, and it’s here to stay – so where do you start, or focus, your efforts? This session will show an approach to understanding how deep and how broad the impact is on your organization.

This session will explore the impact and potential of generative AI (GenAI) on organizations. People are asking “where do I start?”, or “are my current efforts likely to move the needle?”. We will explore a work breakdown framework to understand how GenAI can augment work, and show an approach to defining hotspot areas and the level of impact. The session will include interactive group activities, practical information, and tool demonstration. Participants will be equipped with an understanding of where to best apply the big idea of GenAI to real-life situations in their organizations.

About Our Speakers

Mehmet Tuzel is a Global Solution Lead at Slalom specializing in AI-Enabled Organizations. With over 20 years of experience in both corporate and consulting roles, Tuzel focuses on leveraging AI and machine learning to enhance decision-making, optimize workforce, and create stakeholder value. He has led various projects in AI solutions, workforce strategy, operating model design, and business transformation in various industries.

Session Details

A new study reveals the detrimental impacts on organizations and employees from overlapping C-Suite roles, departments, and functions. Lack of clarity in responsibilities and decision-making authority are causing alarming levels of frustration and harming the productivity and output in organizations. The proliferation of C-suite roles, including Chief Digital Officer, Chief Data Officer, and most recently Chief AI Officer has been prevalent in the technology area for years. However, the trend has become more widespread with newer, often overlapping functional roles such as Chief Growth Officer, Chief Customer Officer, or Chief Transformation Officer. This session will highlight how critical it is for HR executives, CEOs, and Boards of Directors to more carefully consider and define roles, functions, and organizational design as they structure for transformation and for the future.

About The Speaker

Dr. Janet Sherlock is a digital and retail executive who has modernized tech organizations, processes, and solutions through expertise in digital transformation, customer & user experience, omni-channel strategy, data & analytics, marketing technologies, supply chain efficiency, and security, privacy, and compliance. Janet is Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Ralph Lauren Corporation. She and her team drive the company’s digital transformation. Previously, Janet was CIO at Carter’s, Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer and retailer of baby and small children’s apparel and accessories. Prior to that, she led the Digital and Omni-Channel practice at Gartner, a leading research and advisory firm. Her leadership journey includes various P&L and technology leadership roles at Guess?, Inc., Calico Corners, British Petroleum, and ExxonMobil. Janet currently serves on the Board of Directors for BJ’s Restaurants and Brewhouse (NASDAQ: BJRI), and serves on the Nominating & Governance and Audit Committees. She contributed as a member of the Board of Advisors at Backcountry.com from 2018 – 2021. Dr. Sherlock served as a Public Officer on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA), appointed by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal from 2013 – 2017. She was the Chairman of the National Retail Federation (NRF) CIO Council from 2015 – 2017. Dr. Sherlock also served as an Economic Advisor for the Federal Reserve Bank. A long-time advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Janet is an executive sponsor for the corporate DE&I program at Ralph Lauren. She is one of the founding board members of The TechPACT, a non-profit organization established in 2020 to address underrepresentation in the Tech Industry.

Janet holds a doctorate in Organizational Change & Leadership from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Marymount University, and a BS from Penn State University in Supply Chain Management.

Beyond her current corporate roles, Dr. Sherlock has combined her vast experience and research on organizational design and provides guidance to organizations and leaders seeking to create efficient, growth-driven organizations, focusing on technology and technology-related fields.

Session Details

As generative AI reshapes the very fabric of business ecosystems, leaders are faced with the daunting task of proactively navigating the rippling effects of Gen AI on their organizational structures, roles, governance, and decision-making. During this presentation we will delve into the fundamentals of establishing governance models, assigning decision ownership, and fostering environments that ready organizations for the activation of Gen AI. Let us jointly explore how we can harness and augment core capabilities to enable and thrive in this new era of Gen AI.

About Our Speakers

Aparupa Bhattacharya, MBA

Aparupa is Deloitte Consulting LLP’s US Organization Strategies & Design Leader. She is energized by collaborating with executives to architect the leadership and people solutions that enable their strategic priorities– whether growing for the future or reshaping for efficiency and effectiveness. Aparupa and the Organization Strategies & Design practice do this with innovative and flexible approaches to design and build operating models, conduct organization analytics, and re-imagine organization structures. She has spent over 20 years understanding leadership dynamics in complex organizations and uses these insights to lead the shaping of decision rights, governance models, roles and functions, to transform organizations to lead in today’s rapidly evolving environment. Aparupa pairs these capabilities with 20 years of experience in driving strategy articulation, leadership alignment, organizational change management, and strategic communications with large organizations in a variety of industries, including the US Federal government and global clients. She holds an MBA and Health Sector Management Certificate from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BA in Communication Studies from Vanderbilt University. She is a proud Founding Board Member of Great Lakes Academy Charter School in Chicago, where she lives with her husband and two feisty dogs.

Maya Bodan

Maya is a Managing Director in Deloitte’s Organization Human Capital practice. Maya has over 15 years of both Consulting and in house HR experience supporting senior leaders through large scale organization design and operating model transformations across Technology, Media, Telecommunication and Financial services clients. Maya has a specific focus across organizational strategy and design initiatives specializing in the future of work, specifically in looking at designing flexible and networked organizations. She has extensive experience managing large organization transformation projects focusing on large scale change, restructuring, acquisitions, offshoring, organizational culture change, and talent management. Maya sits on the Deloitte Organization Design & Decisions Solutions leadership team both within the US and globally.