Jerry Colonna is a leading executive coach who uses the skills he learned as a venture capitalist to help entrepreneurs. He is a co-founder and CEO of Reboot, the executive coaching and leadership development company, host of the Reboot Podcast, and author of Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong and Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up .He draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction. He was a partner with JPMorgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase and earlier, he’d launched Flatiron Partners, which became one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs in the New York City area. He currently lives on a farm in Colorado.
Hear Jerry discuss:
1. What is the ‘Reunion’ process and its intended outcome?
2. How can acknowledging our ancestral history make us better leaders?
3. What is the best practice for dealing with shame or guilt surrounding our family lineage?
2. How can acknowledging our ancestral history make us better leaders?
3. What is the best practice for dealing with shame or guilt surrounding our family lineage?
Discussion questions for you:
1. Why is it now critical to question traditional definitions of leadership? While it’s always essential to investigate various forms of leadership, it’s clear that the ways leaders have been leading have failed. We see this in the dissatisfaction among employees. We see this in the double-binds business leaders face when social disruption hits home. When companies are boycotted for the slightest expressions of a celebration and welcome for those who might otherwise face discrimination, then it’s clear that new forms of leadership are required.
2. How is systemic othering impacting today’s work environment? How is it not? When we place people in separate categories from ourselves, we automatically think of them differently and treat them differently. We are less likely to value their creative processes, input, and presence. Wildflowers make a garden beautiful and are the key to an accepting culture.
Marty Martinez leads the Reach Out and Read network, which includes more than 6,000 program sites in all 50 states and nearly 30 regional, state, and local affiliates. Marty brings 25 years of experience working on behalf of young people, families and underserved communities across the Greater Boston area. He has a strong skill set and expertise in public health, nonprofit management and positive youth development.
1. How does Reach Out and Read’s new children’s book, Talk Baby Talk, inspire a conversation about diversity in families?
Tulika Mehrotra is a Chicago-based branding and communications expert. She has over 15 years of experience in various sectors and organizations including start-ups with brand building, digital marketing, and communication. Tulika began with Peterson Technology Partners in 2018 as a consultant, leading brand marketing, communication, and digital strategy efforts across the organization. In 2021 she was promoted as PTP’s first Chief Digital Officer in ’ 25-year history.
Devora Yellin Fish is a social justice experiential educator with the goal to increase inclusion in the world. She mentors under-represented purpose-driven Emerging Professionals and Entrepreneurs toward goals. Her mission is to Uplift each and every person for their unique contribution to humanity. No one and nothing left out. (FormerDirector of Education for the TN Holocaust Commission)
Hear Devora discuss:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lewis M. Simons (Lew) has been a foreign correspondent and investigative journalist for half a century, reporting throughout Asia, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. He covered the Vietnam War, opened the world’s eyes to the terror in Tiananmen Square, was expelled from India for revealing Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s abuses and saved the life of a teen-aged Tibetan monk. Simons won the Pulitzer Prize for for exposing the billions that the Marcos family looted from the Philippines and led to the People Power Revolution and the fall of the government. Simons’ newest book, To Tell the Truth, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, chronicles those and many other extraordinary adventures.
Takeaways for ongoing discussion:
Jim Fielding is President of Archer Gray’s Co-Lab Division. He is a respected leader in brand strategy, consumer products and experiences, and storytelling.
Mike Bernhardt is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in many print and online publications including DIVE Magazine, Journey Beyond Travel, GeoEx Travel, and Hidden Compass. He’s also the editor of “Voices of the Grieving Heart,” an anthology of grief poetry. His new short story for Hidden Compass, “The Tides of War,” explores his search for what happened to his wife’s grandparents during World War II.
3. How can we learn from past mistakes and look at individuals, rather than their racial or ethnic affiliation, when determining who is a risk to public safety?
Robert Chelsea was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA where he lived and was educated as average black person, but became a Burn survivor, Amputee and Face Transplant Recipient. Hear his passion for advocacy in Transplant Technology and what caused him to advocate for the disabled diaspora.
Richard Humann is a Brooklyn-based neo-conceptual artist with innumerable international gallery and museum exhibitions, including: the Kemi Art Museum, the Tampere Art Museum, the Tornio Art Museum, the San Cristóbal Art Museum, the Daelim Art Museum, Macao Art Museum, the Kaohsiung Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ssamzie Space, and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Humann was born and raised in the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York State. He divides his time between Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Woodstock, NY.
Calvin Hosey is Head of Operations and Payment Partnership at Regpack, a software leader in automation of billing and other business processes. As a Black tech executive who climbed the corporate ladder for the last 20 years, Calvin has a breadth of knowledge to share with other people of color looking for insight into career development and execs wanting to navigate DEI in tech.