Gary Y. Adkins

Organizational Leadership Practice Leader
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Experience

Gary Adkins leads the Organizational Leadership practice at CCL EMEA based in Brussels. In his current role at CCL, besides client support, he is primarily responsible for content and capability development in the areas of organizational leadership & organizational development. Gary brings over 30 years senior experience in organizational development, organizational leadership, change management, diversity management and operational management, including quality management, with him. Gary worked in the corporate environment (20 years with AT&T) as well as in consulting, offering client solutions support including design and delivery across very diverse industry sectors from telecommunications to healthcare in the areas of organizational transformation. Prior to joining CCL, Gary founded both The Solutions Consulting Group (TSG) and the not for profit Global Diversity Institute (GDI). He also founded and headed up the Center for Ethical Leadership (California State University), leading its educational outreach program. Gary is a well-respected global public speaker, educator, and consultant. He is a published author of multiple articles and a book in his field as well as a sought after keynote speaker.

Current Role

Gary has had extensive experience leading large scale organizational change targeting organizational effectiveness, including culture change, leadership development, re-engineering and restructuring initiatives within large-scale organizations such as AT&T, Kaiser Permanente Healthcare, BlueBridge Technologies, and Lucent-Alcatel Technologies. He has also consulted to the US Pentagon Air Force on base-site culture and diversity. In recent years, Gary has focused his attention on leadership development while helping other companies achieve organizational effectiveness through research, consulting, coaching and education. He is also on the faculty of Boston University, the United Business Institute and the Vietnam Polytechnic University teaching Leadership and Change at the MBA and Executive MBA level.

Educational Background

Gary's educational background comprises doctoral course work and a PhD candidacy in Critical Theory and Political Science at the University of California. He was awarded an MA in International Relations from Boston University, Heidelberg, Germany and York University, Toronto, Canada as well as a BA in Political Science / Psychology from the University of Texas. His consulting certificates range from Inter-Cultural diversity management, dialogue, organizational development, innovation, and total quality management (TQM). He has worked, taught, studied and lived in many different countries in his career ranging from the US and Canada, to Germany, Africa and through Asia and the Middle East.

Languages

Gary is proficient in French as well as being a native English speaker.

Professional Affiliations

He has volunteered as Board Chairman for a LA children's non-profit and taught critical thinking skills to at risk adolescents in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

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David G. Altman

Vice President & Managing Director
Center for Creative Leadership, Europe, Middle East & Africa

As of January 2013, David G. Altman, Ph.D. is heading up CCL EMEA as the new Vice President and Managing Director. (Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) Europe, Middle East & Africa, a not-for-profit research and educational institution with headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina). For the nine previous years, David served as CCL's Executive Vice President, Research, Innovation & Product Development, a role that has immersed him in all aspects of leadership development — from rigorous research to future thinking, from personal development to organizational change, from pressing local needs to complex global challenges. He was CCL's executive sponsor of the Leadership Beyond Boundaries (LBB) work. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

David serves as co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded Executive Nurse Fellows program and the Ladder to Leadership: Building the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders program.

David has long supplemented his work in the public health field with a keen interest leadership. At CCL, he has attended the Leadership Development Program (LDP) Leading Creatively, Developing Leadership Talent, Assessment Certification Workshop, Coaching Certification Workshop, and Leadership at the Peak programs. He currently serves as a faculty member for the Leadership at the Peak program and the Assessment Certification Workshop.

Experience

Prior to coming to CCL, David was a tenured Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston Salem, North Carolina in the Department of Public Health Sciences with a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics. Prior to that, he was Senior Research Scientist at the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.

Educational Background

He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine where he was selected as Alumni of the year in 2007. He completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention.

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Florence Plessier

Coaching Practice Leader
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Experience

Before joining the Center, in her latest corporate position, Florence was Head of the Corporate University of STMicroelectronics in Asia Pacific where she and her team provided training, consulting and coaching solutions in leadership and organizational development as well as performance management across 10 countries in Asia.

Convinced by the power of coaching as a transformational tool for individuals, groups and organization, she decided to explore it further and developed a successful Executive Coaching practice reaching across 4 continents where she specialized in Executive Coaching and Senior Leadership Team Coaching.

Her extensive coaching experience — more than 2500 hours of coaching — had led companies and coaching organization to ask her services to mentor coaches, develop internal coaching programs and facilitate coaching skills workshops for business and HR leaders.

The first 10 years of her career were spent in the electronics corporate world where she developed her business acumen as part of the management team of — successively — StorageTek, Motorola and STMicroelectronics with responsibilities in Industrial Investment, Human Resources and Leadership Development.

Current Role

Florence is Coaching Practice Leader EMEA at the Center for Creative Leadership in Brussels, Belgium. She leads and oversees the development of the coaching portfolio and has overall responsibility for high quality and consistency standards of capability and coaching content in relation with the Design and Implementation team.

She is the content expert in the field of coaching both within and outside CCL, assuming a client interface role in form of pre-sales support and assuming an external representation and branding role for Leadership Coaching across EMEA.

Educational Background

Florence holds a MBA from the Toulouse Business School, France and graduated from the Corporate coaching Program, Corporate Coaching University.

Publication and Professional Affiliations

Florence is accredited Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from the International Coach Federation.

In her capacity of Leader of the Team Effectiveness program in STMicroelectronics, she led the studies developed in ST for the bestseller from Katzenbach and Smith: "The Discipline of teams". She contributed to the book "Organisation and Management" by Joe Marcus and Nick Van Dam.

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Hans Onderbeke

Head of Faculty
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Experience

Before joining the Center, Hans provided and designed a variety of leadership development programs, as well as programs in sales, time management, communication and presentation skills. Hans has a wealth of experience in delivering leadership development programs across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the USA. Prior to joining CCL Hans held various positions as management, sales and leadership trainer as well as senior consultant within the areas of sales and management development. In his most recent role before joining CCL he was the European Commercial Director for a well-established Belgium company where he successfully led a large sales team. Other senior roles he held before joining CCL include director roles at large global pharmaceutical companies. Hans also has extensive experience in recruitment and selection, individual coaching and assessments.

Current Role

Hans is Head of Faculty EMEA at the Centre for Creative Leadership in Brussels, Belgium and is also responsible for leading the practice of individual leadership development solutions. Hans designed and delivered all of CCL's open enrolment and numerous custom leadership development programs across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the USA. Hans is also a charismatic facilitator and is experienced in delivering interactive workshops in HR conferences in Europe and Africa.

He contributes to the delivery and design of many customized programs for CCL clients ranging from banking (corporate and private banking), FMCG, telecommunications, retail, advertising, energy, chemical, high tech, real estate, construction, chocolate-industry etc.

He is certified to use a large number of worldwide recognized instruments including the Thomas International^®, MBTI^®, FIRO-B^®, Benchmarks^® and other CCL assessment tools.

Educational Background

Hans holds a master's degree in Economics from Brussels University and first degree in Accounting.

Languages

His native language is Dutch and he is fluent in French and English and good knowledge of German, which he acquired whilst he was living and working in Germany.

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Regina H. (Gina) Eckert

Senior Research Associate
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Experience

Gina uses her knowledge and research experience in cross-cultural leadership, especially in the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for CCL's research on leadership and diversity. She brings both qualitative and quantitative research skills to answer questions about leaders' career development, leadership and gender, globally responsible leadership, and leadership challenges around the world. She has managed the development of Global Leader View, a new 360-degree feedback tool for global leadership.

Current Role

Gina is the representative of CCL's Research department in the EMEA region. She is project manager for the study "Careers in 21st Century Europe", where a global team of CCL researchers and academic professors explore how culture and gender influence the development of leadership careers in various European countries. She speaks and presents on leadership and diversity to both scholars and practitioners. Gina is a key researcher on current projects around leadership and sustainability, social identity and diversity. She is also one of the drivers in broadening of CCL's evaluation capacity in the EMEA region.

Educational Background

Gina holds a degree in psychology from the University of Munich, Germany, and a PhD in Management from Aston Business School, UK. She also has a post-graduate certificate from Aston for teaching and learning in Higher Education, approved by the Higher Education Academy, UK.

Languages

Her working languages are English and German.

Professional Affiliations

Gina's research has been published in research scholarly journals such as the European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, Journal of Managerial Psychology, International Journal of Cross-cultural Competence and Management, or the Journal of Global Responsibility. She also writes for practitioner outlets such as Financial Times, various publications of the Center for Creative Leadership, and the German Magazine of Personnel Leadership (Personalführung). Gina is a member of member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the Academy of Management (AoM), European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP), and the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP).

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Bert De Coutere

Solutions Architect
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Experience

Bert's professional life is all about competent people. He thinks, publishes, consults, designs and sets up learning and development projects for corporations. His areas of expertise include technology enhanced learning and leadership development.

Bert has been active in the field of corporate learning and e-learning for the last 12 years, first as instructor and course designer, later as project manager, consultant and business development manager. He worked at IBM Learning Development Europe where he was responsible for commercial e-learning development projects across Europe, and the management of the learning innovation initiatives. Recently he joined the Center for Creative Leadership as a solution architect, designing custom leadership development experiences. He worked with clients such as Maersk, FOD Financiën, Nationwide, La Poste, ING, Rhodia, Unilever, PMI, European Union, Shell, etc.

Bert wrote the book 'Homo Competens — Let's talk about competent people in the network age', frequently speaks at conferences such as Online Educa Berlin and blogs at homocompetens.blogspot.com.

Current Role

Bert is currently Solutions Architect in the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) EMEA office. In his role he designs customized leadership interventions and programs for clients and bring these designs to fruition based on CCL's solution architecture portfolio.

Educational Background

Bert holds a degree as Commercial Engineer in Information Management (KULeuven) and an Executive MBA title from the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.

Languages

Bert's working languages are English, Dutch and French.

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Clemson G. Turregano

Leadership Portfolio Director
Center for Creative Leadership EMEA

Industry Experience

Clemson's roles within CCL provide him the opportunity to work with numerous commercial, public, and non-government agencies, offering a variety of leadership development and coaching programs. Commercial programs include major automotive manufacturers, broadcast networks, defense manufacturers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, school boards and universities across the globe. His experience includes working with national and international public agencies across the spectrums of foreign relations, defense, education, intelligence, and humanitarian aid.

Prior to joining CCL, Clemson served in a global capacity as a strategic planner and mentor. As the leader of a strategic planning team, Clemson developed international agreements, created organizational training and partnership programs, and mentored senior government officials. Before this he was a practicing scholar, teaching strategic leadership to senior government and corporate officials. His broad range of knowledge is heavily influenced by his background in public administration, his four years as CCL's Director for Government Programs, and his experience as a CCL Coaching Practice Leader.

Current Role

Serving currently as the Leadership Portfolio Director for the EMEA region, Clemson is responsible for the full spectrum of CCL's Leadership Solutions, including coaching and senior level organizational solutions. Leading a diverse international team of faculty, coaches, and associates, the EMEA team leverages the unique abilities of CCL research, content, client outcomes, and strength of faculty to deliver a wide variety of leadership development experiences.

Educational Background

Clemson's undergraduate degree is from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. He earned his Masters Degree in Political Science, MPA, and Doctorate from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He also earned a Masters in Security and Strategy from the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Publications and Professional Affiliations

Clemson has published extensively on leadership in an international context and his current research involves best leadership practices across the commercial and international public service sector. CCL recently published his guidebook on Delegation. Clemson is an CCL-approved Executive Coach, certified in CCL-proprietary 360-degree assessments as well as many other psychometric assessment instruments.

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