ABOUT US
 
 

Our Associates

Jim Dowd
Donna Denio
Masao Isihara
Takashi Hasunuma
Charmaine Sullivan



James J. Dowd is Senior Fellow and Managing Director, Executive Education, at Harvard Business School.

From 1994 to 2004 he was Professor of Organizational Behavior at IMD, a leading institute for executive education located in Lausanne, Switzerland. For five years he was a member of IMD’s Management Committee with responsibility for the portfolio of custom-designed partnership programs. From 1994 to 1999 he directed the open enrollment program Mobilizing People, focusing on leadership and teamwork. He was faculty Program Director for IMD’s custom programs with Bertelsmann, Hoffman-LaRoche, Julius Bär, and RWE, among other clients. His research and teaching interests focus on leadership, organizational values, and individual commitment to organizations.

He has acted as consultant to several international companies in the areas of organizational change and development, executive coaching and development, and team-building at senior management levels. He has designed and directed several executive programs at IMD addressing the behavioral implications of major strategic and cultural change programs. Professor Dowd has jointly developed and delivered several such programs in collaboration with other major business schools, including Columbia University, Northwestern University, and Ashridge Management College.

In 1994 Professor Dowd was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the
Organizational Behaviour Teaching Society. He is also a member of the Academy of Management.

He is the author of several case studies and co-authored the 1993 book Vision, Values and Courage: Leadership for Quality Management, with Neil H. Snyder and Dianne Morse Houghton. His most recent work focuses on the development and implementation of corporate values statements, and on the development of leadership competencies for competitive advantage.

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Donna Denio, founder of Center For Balance By Design and co-president of communication and outreach, is a specialist in leadership development, internal and external communications and team building.

Donna holds a graduate degree in business administration from Northeastern University and studied architecture and interior design at the Univer sity of the Philippines. She has twenty-five years of experience in organizational leadership. Donna works as a business-focused partner with professionals and organizations to design and implement growth strategies and is committed to the creation of work relationships and work cultures that support change and learning as natural, evolutionary, and sustainable processes.

She was named the first female principal at both an international engineer-constructor and a national architectural-engineering firm. Donna is a member of NEWIRE (New England Member in Real Estate) for over 20 years, a member of the NEWIRE Legacy Council and Public Strategy Committee and alternate CREW Network delegate; is a charter member and past president of the Boston Chapter of SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services); the membership chair of ACEC MA (American Consulting Engineers Council); is the co-founder and steering committee member of the BSA-SCUP (Boston Society of Architects-Society of College and University Planners) College and University Roundtable, an active Rotarian and a member of the Zoo New England Advisory Council.

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Masao Ishihara has been working with the LEGO company for more than ten years to develop "Constructionism" based learning tools, activities, facilities and businesses using them. His company, Learning Systems, was founded in Japan n 1997 to distribute LEGO's educational tools including LEGO MINDSTORMS. He has been working closely with Tufts University to introduce Engineering Educational approaches to Japanese educational institutions. His current project includes working with MIT Media Lab to develop art and science education programs using the latest hand-on educational devices developed at MIT. He is also a director of academic programs at CREFUS robotic education center, who has more than 70 schools in Japan.

He joined Robert Rasmussen and Associates LLC in 2006 to provide Japanese companies with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY programs. His past and current projects includes leading japanese customers such as JR Tokai (Railway), ISL (Management Education Institute), Hakuho-do (Advertisement Agency), and KAIL (Management Education Institute).

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Takashi Hasunuma is CEO and President of Robert Rasmussen Associates-Japan, Inc. He is currently Program Director of a leadership and management training NPO in Kyushu Island, Japan; Kyushu Asia Institute of Leadership where he came across with Masao Ishihara and then, Robert Rasmussen in 2006 and 2008 respectively. These occasions made him commit to the promotion of LSP in Japan and became a facilitator in 2008.

He started his career a trader of chemicals and then a new technology researcher at Mitsubishi Corporation in 1974, until he became an Executive Director at Russell Reynolds Associates, Inc in 1989. Takashi acted as one of the founding members of Globis Corporation in 1994 and developed executive training program with case method for Japanese multinational manufacturing and comprehensive trading companies; inclusive of Hitachi, NTT, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Marubeni during 1994 – 1997. Globis Corporation is now a leading private business school, approved by Japan’s Minister of Culture & Science. Then he became Managing Director(s) of Texchem Group of Companies of Malaysia, and manufactured and sold plastics packages for multinational semiconductor and hard disk drive manufacturers in Thailand, Singapore and Philippines during 1998-2004.

Back in Tokyo, 2004, he jointly started Potomac Associates, Inc, an executive and professional search consulting company and concurrently became Program Director of KAIL in 2005. He has an MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, United States (1985) and a BS in Industrial Management from Waseda University, Japan (1984).


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Charmaine Sullivan
, has a broad range of experience that helps individuals and organizations to develop innovative, strategic solutions for business and personal success.

Prior to founding WIN-ovation Works LLC in 2001, she retired from Procter & Gamble after 27 years of working in all facets of the consumer products business from strategy development and upstream research to process development and manufacturing. Charmaine has talked with consumers in over 30 countries and has expertise in consumer research using creative techniques to understand unarticulated needs, then applying these to product and business development. She has worked with numerous global teams on billion dollar brands and has also managed intellectual property business development.

Her company’s mission is to inspire people to bring their best thinking and passion to the workplace and team efforts. As a certified practitioner of both Insights™ and LEGO® Serious Play™, she works to leverage individual and group styles to tackle challenges and to seek solutions to complex, emotional issues. Her customized tools and proven processes build upon the principles of creativity, the power of self-understanding, team collaboration, setting clear intentions for the future, and making outcomes actionable.

Charmaine has a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois and an M.B.A. in International Marketing from Xavier University. In addition to working with Fortune 500 clients, she has worked with small to medium start-up companies as well as non-profit organizations.

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