My Credentials

Professional Focus

The primary focus of my consulting practice is coaching and facilitating senior management in formulating business strategy backed up with sound implementation plans. In the process, these teams strengthen their capability to make strategic choices on an ongoing basis.

My assignments are built on three life talents: facilitator, educator, and student of strategic thinking.

Career and Education

Career milestones include:

  • sales, management, and Customer Executive Programs with IBM Canada,
  • executive education and strategy consulting with DMR Group (now Fujitsu Consulting) and management of the firm’s leadership and professional development programs,
  • consulting as an independent practitioner under the banner of CYOR Inc.,
  • founding partner of Johnston Smith International (now Mercer Delta), a Toronto-based consulting firm focusing on change management, as head of the Firm’s Strategy Practice, and
  • co-founder of The Energy Exchange, an enterprise focused on teaching and coaching individuals and groups how to liberate creative energy in their professional and personal lives.

I hold a BSc from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario, and am a Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (cmc-ontario).

Consulting experience

Following 10 years with IBM, half of which was in IBM Canada’s Customer Executive Education group, I joined the DMR Group (now Fujitsu Consulting), to initiate the firm’s executive consulting practice, and launch the firm’s education and training business. The curriculum of The DMR Institute included general management skills, leadership, and professional development, as well as technical skills programs. The audiences included both employees and customers, and extended geographically across Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe.

I left DMR in 1989 to set up an independent practice (now CYOR Inc.) concentrating on facilitating the development of business strategy in client organizations. At that stage, most of my clients were in the Financial Services and Health Care sectors.

In late 1990, I joined with three other senior practitioners to form Johnston Smith International (now Mercer Delta), established its Strategy practice, and continued to design and deliver management training programs. Here the concentration was on formulating corporate and business unit strategy leading to major change management assignments for the Firm.

In mid-1998, I left Johnston Smith to return to independent practice, concentrating on facilitating strategic sessions for public and private sector clients.

Over the past five years I have been working with colleague Julia Gluck formulating a unique and powerful approach to creative problem solving and the pursuit of strategic opportunities. The insights are the distillation of over 25 years of exposure to people in facilitated sessions and training environments, and define the practices that allow personal creative energy to flow freely. Using techniques embodied in The Energy Exchange teams produce richer solutions faster, and improve their mutual understanding and collaboration in the process.

Professional and Community Activity

  • Past President of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (cmc-ontario) and past Chair of the Institute’s Fellows Committee
  • Past Chair, National Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (cmc-canada),
  • Past President of the Phi Gamma Delta Foundation of Canada and currently a member of the Leadership Advisory Committee for the International Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta
  • Past President of the Ahmic Lake Cottagers Association.