Expert Practitioners
& Active Pioneers

At dialogos, our continued success and effectiveness ultimately comes down to an extraordinary group of practitioners who bring a broad range of life experience and expertise to every engagement.

Leadership

Bill Isaacs

CEO & Principal

  • William Isaacs is the Founder and CEO of dialogos, a renowned strategic dialogue and leadership development firm based in Concord, MA. A recognized authority on leadership, dialogue, and organizational transformation, Isaacs has over three decades of experience guiding leaders and organizations toward profound change.

    As a co-founder of the Organizational Learning Center at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Isaacs taught as a Senior Lecturer for over 30 years. He is the author of Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (Doubleday, 1999), regarded as the definitive guide to achieving change through dialogue, and widely cited in leadership practices around the world. His work forms the foundation of numerous leadership programs worldwide.

    Focused on unlocking collective intelligence and fostering large-scale change, Isaacs has taught, advised, and coached CEOs of global corporations, fund managers, policymakers, national leaders, and prime ministers. His leadership work spans dialogues with energy executives, senior political figures in South Asia, and cabinet ministers, while also leading large-scale system transformations for corporations and government agencies across multiple continents. Recent projects include facilitating national dialogues on energy strategy in Nepal, leading a five-year strategic vision for South Asia, advising a pharmaceutical CEO, and guiding investors on human capital development.

    Dr. Isaacs holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and both an M.Phil. and a D.Phil. from Oxford University.

Volker Brendel

Chief Science Officer

    • PhD Weizmann Institute

    • Professor of Biology and Computer Science, Indiana

    • Focus on systems biology and bioinformatics

Skip Griffin

Coaching & Leadership Advisory

  • For 15 years, Skip served as director of community relations and public affairs at The Boston Globe newspaper, where he championed high-quality public outreach between the newspaper and ethnic associations, non-profit organizations, special interest advocacy groups and small town and county governments. Skip was one of a nine-member consortium team representing The Boston Globe, Fleet Bank, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to successfully organize a major conference on the future of development in the waterfront area. He has also organized other major conferences, including one on health care for 400 top-level executives, which included the U.S. First Lady, seven senior United States Senators, top health officials, and economists as presenters.

    As an executive on the Board of Directors of The Boston Globe Foundation, he awarded grants totaling 2.5 to 4 million dollars annually. As Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Director of the African American Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, he managed a staff of 12 professionals, 20 part-time tutors, and 4 interns.

    Skip has a significant background in civil rights, community organizing, and community education initiatives, and was a plaintiff in a landmark school desegregation case during the Civil Rights era, Griffin vs. Prince Edward County, Virginia. He served as a strategist and media relations advisor for the Ten Point Coalition.

    He holds a B.A. in Government from Harvard College and a Masters of Education in Organizational and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

    Skip has a significant background in civil rights, community organizing, and community education initiatives, and was a plaintiff in a landmark school desegregation case during the Civil Rights era, Griffin vs. Prince Edward County, Virginia. He served as a strategist and media relations advisor for the Ten Point Coalition. He holds a B.A. in Government from Harvard College and a Masters of Education in Organizational and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Rick Maguire

Digital Tools

  • Rick Maguire is a Director of dialogos | Generative Capital. He has 35 years of experience leading and developing high-performance teams as a nuclear submarine officer, corporate executive, and strategic business advisor and coach. His coaching clients include leadership in companies that have successfully grown from early-stage venture investment to strategic acquisition and public offering.

Ann Ralston

Leadership Programs

  • Ann Ralston is a Director of dialogos | Generative Capital and has been coaching leaders and teams for over 20 years, helping build thriving, purpose-driven organizations that surpass their perceived limitations.

    Her secret? Guiding executives and teams to craft winning cultures founded on core values, accountability, and innovation. She provides the catalyst for her clients to develop effective and adaptive business strategies that deliver results beyond expectations.

Associates

Bradley Chenoweth

    • Teaching Faculty, MIT Sloan School IDEAS Asia Pacific program

    • Australia based lawyer

    • LCI faculty

    • Senior coaching and facilitation skills 

    • Experience through Asia and Europe

Aaron Frederick

  • Aaron Frederick serves as a Director at dialogos | Generative Capital, drawing from 20 years of experience as a strategy and social enterprise development consultant, organizational founder, process facilitator, and trainer.

    Aaron supports Dialogos' engagements in the areas of social and environmental impact, including strategy development, capacity building, and leadership team alignment. As a Dialogos practitioner and facilitator, Aaron empowers organizations to achieve strategic alignment, drive positive culture change, and operationalize their visionary plans, translating ambitious ideas into practical realities.

    His passion for leadership and the natural world led him to paddle the Eastern seaboard of the US in a sea kayak and purchase a 26-acre Maine island, developing it into the thriving eco-school and leadership development program called Rippleffect, Inc. In 2010, he embarked on a transformative FlowFund fellowship, collaborating with seven other social innovators to facilitate dialogue and council practices while researching regenerative environmental, social, and governance principles across five continents.

    Dedicated to bridging the gap between vision and action, Aaron supports leaders to unlock their true potential for a positive and transformative impact. He resides in Maine with his musician wife and son, extending a warm invitation to all collaborators for a board meeting in the surf.

    M.A., Leadership and Organizational Studies

Cees Kramer

  • Cees is a former senior executive at BP, and has extensive work experience in Supply, Trading and Marketing in Europe, Africa and Asia, integrating diverse organizations and individuals in complex environments, and enabling local teams to take on leadership. As a leader who established the first BP joint venture in China and who managed organizational and cultural post-merger integration processes in Europe, Asia, and the US, Cees is highly skilled at creating alliances and win-win situations, and at integrating people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. During his international career Cees has lived and worked in Amsterdam, Brussels, Singapore, London, and Cape Town.

    As Senior Associate at Dialogos, Cees’ passion for leadership development is fuelled by his personal experience and belief that everybody has the potential to reach extraordinary goals. Cees believes that the wisdom to produce creative change and resolve difficulties is already present in the individuals within the system. In his consulting and coaching practice Cees encourages leaders to bring all of themselves to their roles so they lead and inspire with integrity whilst invoking the collective intelligence of their teams.

    Combining personal enthusiasm and deep practical experience, Cees creates an environment in which individuals can listen and think together to produce new, powerful and sustainable outcomes. Cees holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is fluent in English and Dutch, and has a working knowledge of German and French.

Maja Tampe

    • Associate Professor, Esade Barcelona​

    • PhD MIT Sloan School

    • Former McKinsey consultant​

    • Leadership and Sustainability expert​

Didem Tekay

    • Author of the Grow ​

    • Forward Manifesto​

    • Recipient of Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award​

    • Over 20 years as senior partner in executive coaching and consulting​

Alper Tenguez

  • Alper is a German-Turkish national who grew up in Frankfurt, Germany and lives in Istanbul, Turkey. He studied Industrial Engineering in the US and completed a PhD in development economics at Goethe University, Frankfurt. As an Engagement Manager with McKinsey he led client engagements in the private as well as the public sector in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Integrating his academic and consulting experience Alper advised extensively in the health care sector (insurance, hospitals, pharma) and institutions like the German GIZ, the Government of Albania on FDI or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on financial market integration. During this time, Alper discovered his passion and talent for helping executives work better with teams to achieve their ambitions. He now works as an executive coach and organizational consultant. His focus has shifted from delivering “smart consulting answers” to empowering individuals and groups to solve their own challenges by strengthening their leadership capabilities. He has coached and consulted executives from the US, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South and East Asia.

    Alper is passionate about education and is an engaged teacher of the future generation. As a lecturer and program designer at the University of Frankfurt, Goethe Business School and a Turkish Master in Leadership in Organizations he has created and launched innovative executive education programs. His years of international work have convinced Alper that organizations must innovate new models of developing and engaging their employees in order to be global, profitable and socially responsible entities.

Strategic Advisors

Roger Brown

    • Former CEO, Varo Energy, successfully scaling to integrated bio and fossil fuels company​

    • 25 years Senior Executive BP ​

    • Expert in trading , integrated value chain optimization, system leadership​

David Marsing

    • 30 years in senior roles at Intel​

    • VP Technology and Manufacturing and led worldwide manufacturing​

    • Built and scaled world’s largest wafer fab​

Jim Stanard

    • BA, Lehigh University,
      PhD, New York University

    • Founding Investor,
      Pelican Ventures

    • Founder, Chairman and CEO, RenaissanceRe - grew market  value from $141M to $3B+

John Sviokla

    • DBA Harvard Business School​

    • 12 years on faculty Harvard Business School​

    • Chief Marketing, Officer, PWC