Interweaving Vertical and Horizontal Development: a Whole-Person Approach to Scale Leadership

When it comes to the mainstream understanding of leadership, one mode of development dominates: horizontal. Horizontal development, or building skills, expertise, knowledge, and competencies, is usually what people refer to when discussing leadership development. It is absolutely necessary, but alone it doesn’t develop leaders who can operate effectively in today’s ever-changing world. 

Vertical development is less understood, often neglected, more nuanced, and it is absolutely critical for leaders to actually effect systemic change. Vertical development transforms who a leader is. It shifts their mindset, challenges their beliefs, increases wisdom, expands consciousness, and ultimately builds a leader’s capacity to interpret, relate, and lead in today’s highly complex world.  

In this webinar, Carlo and Lori will explore the importance of connecting vertical and horizontal leadership in pursuit of scalable leadership. They will discuss: 

  • The cost of focusing largely on horizontal leadership development, and why it still dominates the market.  
  • What vertical development is, how it scales leadership, and how it can be practically nurtured.  
  • How these two forms of development combine to produce tangible results. 

Presenters

Interweaving Vertical and Horizontal Development: a Whole-Person Approach to Scale Leadership 1

Lori Mazan

Co-founder, President and Chief Coaching Officer, Sounding Board

Lori Mazan is the co-founder, president, and chief coaching officer for Sounding Board, the first Leader Development Platform designed to bridge the leadership gap. One of the first 250 ICF certified coaches globally, she has spent more than 25 years coaching C-suite executives to develop critical leadership capabilities that have immediate and positive business outcomes. 

In 2016, Lori partnered with Christine Tao to launch Sounding Board as a feedback-driven, cloud-based leadership coaching platform that could deliver best-in-class leadership coaching, while lowering costs to make coaching affordable and scalable for leaders at every level of their careers.

Certified by the industry’s gold standard, the Co-Active Training Institute, Lori was a founding member of the Genentech Preferred Network of Coaches.

Carlo Bos

Carlo Bos

Co-CEO, Co-Active Training Institute (CTI)

Carlo Bos is the co-CEO for Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), and a member of the Board. Carlo has spent more than two decades leading the charge to transform human experience through contextually based, experientially driven leadership development. He is passionate about helping develop a world full of courageous and conscious leaders who fight for healthy relationships with self, others and systems.

In his co-leadership role at CTI, Carlo has been instrumental in building the organization’s leadership effectiveness and developing sustainable governance practices. He is committed to continued learning to ensure equity, inclusion, diversity and accessibility are at the heart of CTI’s products, operations and people experience.

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Niall MacGearailt

SVP of Finance
Niall MacGearailt leads Sounding Board’s finance division as the SVP of Finance and Operations. Niall earned a solid track record of improving P&L and operational expense management for leading companies such as Whirlpool, Logitech, Avaya and most recently Soraa, where he prepared the business for acquisition by leading hi-tech lighting company, Ecosense. In his role, he is responsible for building and leading the finance & relevant operations functions for the company.

Ron Buell

VP of Engineering
Ron Buell is the VP of Engineering at Sounding Board and an accomplished software professional with extensive experience in leadership, software engineering, project management, and product management. Ron has led the development of highly scalable systems and applications across a variety of technologies for companies including OpenFeint (acquired by GREE), Rdio (acquired by Pandora), Lyris Technologies, and Lotus/IBM Software Group. In his role at Sounding Board, Buell is responsible for all engineering efforts in developing, deploying, and maintaining the enterprise software platform and team for the company.

Tommy Perkins

SVP OF SALES, PARTNERSHIP & CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Tommy is at his best helping clients think through complex challenges in order to create a positive impact on their organizations. He thrives when interacting with others whether helping his team succeed or working with clients to build long-term partnerships. He has extensive experience consulting with organizations on driving their employee experience, guiding organizations through change, and working to ensure organizations are moving the needle when it comes to their results.

Most recently, Tommy was a Client Services Leader overseeing some of GP’s most prized accounts on a global level. His responsibilities included overall client growth strategy, retention, and satisfaction. He represented all of GP Strategies’ major business lines including leadership, coaching, and engagement, digital transformation, outsourced services, and technology implementation solutions.

Before GP Strategies, Tommy spent several years with TTEC Digital (formerly rogenSI) where he led the sales team,  eventually becoming the regional Learning & Performance practice leader for North America. While managing the P&L and sales team he also led the largest global relationship for the firm (Deloitte Globally). During his time at TTEC, he focused on delivering blended learning solutions that incorporate technology and hands-on training. Before TTEC Digital, he spent several years dedicated to strength-based leadership disrupting the business landscape regarding performance management and employee engagement with thought leader Marcus Buckingham at The Marcus Buckingham Company / TMBC (now ADP).

Tommy has had the privilege of working with some of the most well-known global brands in professional services, retail, technology, and healthcare including Deloitte, Facebook, Microsoft, Bank of America, Novartis, Gap Inc., lululemon, and Intel. Several projects he led for Deloitte were Global GNPS, New Partner Pivot, NextGen Partner Program Deloitte China, Present to Win, the RPM project on performance management, and Unconscious Bias.

Tommy holds a BS in Health Sciences from Texas A&M University, and an MBA from Universidad del CEMA.

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Lori Mazan

Co-Founder & CCO Sounding Board, Inc.
Lori Mazan is the Co-Founder and Chief Coaching Officer of Sounding Board, the preeminent global leadership development enterprise platform changing the face of leadership development through innovative technology for leaders at all levels of an organization. Lori is a seasoned executive coach who has guided hundreds of corporate executives through 1:1 coaching focused on business outcomes and developing critical leadership skills. Client companies advanced by Lori’s expertise include Fortune titans such as Chevron and Sprint as well as high growth and public companies like Intellikine, and Tapjoy, plus 10XGenomics, which became a public company in 2019 while top executives worked with Lori and the Sounding Board team.
Lori has spent the last 25 years coaching C-Suite executives to leadership excellence. Many of those public and private company CEO’s expressed that they would have liked this caliber of coaching earlier in their careers. Inspired by these experiences, Lori joined with Christine to launch Sounding Board as a feedback-driven, cloud-based leadership coaching platform that could maintain best-in-class leadership coaching while lowering costs to make it affordable and scalable for leaders at every level of their careers.
Before founding Sounding Board, Lori received her Masters’ in Adult Educational Psychology/Counseling from the University of San Francisco and a Bachelors’ in Psychology from the University of Virginia. Lori is an educator and has spent over 10 years as a professor of social psychology and group dynamics while acting as the interim Dean of Students at Holy Names University, She is certified by the industry’s gold standard, the Coaches Training Institute, and is a founding member of the Genentech Preferred Network of Coaches. Sounding Board is one of <3% of sole female founded startups receiving venture funding. In 2019 Sounding Board was selected as 1 of 7 startups (out of 100+ applicants) as part of SAP’s HR tech cohort, a group that represents the rising stars of the next-gen HR ecosystem.

Christine Tao

Co-Founder & CEO Sounding Board, Inc.
Christine Tao is the co-founder & CEO at Sounding Board, a Silicon Valley startup redefining how organizations are developing their leaders. Her extraordinarily rapid career growth to executive management in the media, mobile and tech sectors of Silicon Valley became her inspiration for founding Sounding Board. As she began to manage larger teams and be responsible for growing revenues, it became clear that she needed a “sounding board” to coach her on the development of her leadership skills. That’s where her Sounding Board co-founder, Lori Mazan came on the scene. A seasoned executive coach focused on leadership development, Lori coached Christine on real-world leadership skills that had a direct impact on business outcomes. Based on her positive and impactful experience with leadership development, Christine was driven to make leadership development coaching accessible to people at all levels of the organization.
Christine advises several startups, is a budding angel investor and is also a Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, a foundation dedicated to investing in the success and sustainability of women entrepreneurs.
Prior to co-founding Sounding Board, Christine was a Senior Vice President of Developer Relations at Tapjoy, a venture-backed, leading mobile advertising & publishing network. She led the growth of Tapjoy’s publisher advertising business from 0 to over $100 million in revenues in less than 3 years. Prior to that she led e-commerce partnerships and strategy at YouTube. Christine holds an MBA in Marketing & Operations from Wharton and a BA in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.