All thoughtLEADERS instructors are practitioners of the methodologies they teach. They have experience across the fields of management and strategy consulting, military leadership, strategic planning, P&L management and business unit execution. They have run multi-million dollar organizations, led teams (both small and large) and set and executed strategy for some of America’s premier companies. They bring a healthy dose of the real-world up to the podium with them every time they teach. They don’t just know the methodology – they live it. Here are the profiles of some of our instructors: |
Mike Figliuolo
Managing Director
figliuolo@thoughtleadersllc.comMike graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1993 where he was an honor graduate and a Distinguished Cadet. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army. He spent five years as an Armor officer in a variety of roles including Platoon Leader, Executive Officer, Personnel Officer and ROTC Instructor at Duke University.
After leaving the Army, he joined McKinsey and Company as a management consultant. He served clients in several industries (banking, retail, healthcare, chemicals, and technology) on a variety of issues (strategy, mergers & acquisitions, cost reductions, growth and business building). He also published many of his findings in professional development documents proprietary to McKinsey as well as publishing an article in The McKinsey Quarterly.
Mike next worked at Capital One Financial as Group Manager of Strategy & Analysis and as Director of Specialty Collections. He was responsible for ~$1B in collections, a $125MM budget and the performance of 150 employees. The initiatives his teams put in place delivered over $125MM in value.
Mike’s most recent roles were Vice President, Quality Improvement, Customer Service, Business Development & Service Support for Scotts LawnService where he was responsible for acquisitions, division strategy, technology infrastructure, customer service, and franchise operations. Previously, he was Vice President, Strategic Planning at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG) where he was responsible for setting the strategic direction of the company by working directly with the executive team (CEO, CFO, Division Presidents) to assess where the business should be headed long-term and then identifying opportunities to achieve corporate goals.
Mike founded thoughtLEADERS, LLC because he believed that practitioners make the best instructors and because he has a passion for people development and organizational improvement.
Alan C. Veeck, Jr.
Senior Instructor
veeck@thoughtleadersllc.com
Alan graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1991 with a degree in Chemistry, cum laude. He pursued higher education in chemistry, attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he had several appointments as teaching assistant in undergraduate chemistry curriculum, and conducted his own research, primarily in heavy element nuclear chemistry. Alan graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Chemistry degree in 1996.
After graduate school, Alan joined McKinsey and Company as a management consultant. He served clients in several industries (heavy manufacturing, healthcare, chemicals, and technology) on a variety of issues (strategy, mergers & acquisitions, cost reductions, growth and business building). Additionally, he worked extensively within the Purchasing and Supply Management practice.
Alan joined Ariba in early 1999 and served as a Director with the Global Account Management team, and was responsible for the strategic direction of several of Ariba's long-term and largest global customers. During his time at Ariba, Alan worked in a variety of roles: he built and led the Sourcing Solutions team within the Sales organization, managed a team of 60 market-makers in the Sourcing Operations group, worked with a number of customers across many industries in Account Management, and was briefly involved in acquisition integration work.
After Ariba, Alan joined forces once again with several of his founding colleagues from Ariba to start Meakem Becker Venture Capital, and early-stage traditional venture capital firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a partner, he helped the firm to raise their first fund of $75 million, and is heavily involved in finding, selecting, and nurturing the startup enterprises that form their portfolio.
Alan is one of the original members of thoughtLEADERS, LLC, and serves as a Senior Instructor.
Rayford L. Davis
Senior Instructor
davis@thoughtleadersllc.comRayford then joined the venture capital backed start-up Ethcentric as a Business Development Manager and one of the first three employees. At Ethcentric, Rayford developed marketing strategies to help large consumer marketing companies leverage interactive technologies to improve their marketing efforts to ethnic communities.
In 2003, Rayford graduated from Harvard Business School with a Masters of Business Administration with Distinction degree. He joined the Crest toothpaste brand management team at Procter and Gamble. Rayford led the Canadian launch of Crest’s premier fashion & beauty oriented toothpaste, coordinating six business functions in two countries & four locations with a budget of over $10 million. In this work, he developed the “Fresh Expression” Sweepstakes, an Internet promotion of Crest’s sponsorship of the BET Awards. Rayford has also worked extensively with non-profit organizations. He developed a business plan for the Nigerian Arts Incubator (a proposed focal point for support of the arts in Nigeria) for the West Africa Office of the Ford Foundation. Rayford also taught African-American and Hispanic youth entrepreneurship and multi-media business operations for the Youth Service Project in Chicago.
Currently, Rayford is a Principal of Deconia Holdings, LLC, a boutique consulting and advisory firm. He specializes in strategic planning, marketing, product development, and capital acquisition for retail, consumer packaged goods, and media companies. Additionally, he serves as a resource to private investment firms considering investments in such industries.
Rayford is one of the original members of thoughtLEADERS, LLC, and serves as a Senior Instructor.
Ron Bernstein
Senior Instructor
bernstein@thoughtleadersllc.comRon earned his MBA at Baruch College in NYC in 1985, with a concentration in Accountancy. He received his CPA license from New York State in 1988. His thesis explored the impact of newly published accounting rules. Immediately after grad school, Ron joined Coopers & Lybrand with assignments in financial audit, tax, small business consulting and information technology audit. As a computer consultant for emerging business services, he specialized in the recommendation and implementation of accounting-related software and hardware solutions.
Ron started his career with American Express in corporate audit where he designed, developed and supported systems and processes including planning, workpaper and report generation, audit findings tracking, time and project management, and performance measurement analysis functions. He managed staff and outsourced developers supporting 250 customers in 15 global locations. Immediately prior to 9/11, Ron was the leader of the Amex NYC Crisis Management team where he developed and implemented a global BCP policy, accompanying standards and a reporting process. He redesigned, maintained and regularly exercised 20 New York-based business recovery plans.
As a Director with American Express, Ron led a team responsible for past due card members. His team focused on the analytics to support best practice collection efforts in several areas. He redesigned relationship management processes improving agency performance and staff development and instituted a quarterly performance review and market share optimization process. He successfully established off-shore third-party collection sites in Canada and India.
Ron earned his BA in Music from New York University. He is an accomplished classical guitarist and teacher. While at NYU, he gave lessons to the children of diplomats that attended the United Nations International School in NYC. He continues his involvement with education by volunteering at PS 137 as part of the Junior Achievement program. He was recognized by JA-NY as the volunteer of the year in 2004.
Ron is one of the newer members of thoughtLEADERS, LLC and serves as a Senior Instructor.
Andy Hohman
Associate
hohman@thoughtleadersllc.comAndy graduated from The Ohio State University in 2000 where graduated first in his academic department with a BS in Material Science and Engineering. Upon graduation he spent 4 years working as an IT consultant for Accenture. Accenture is a $11.4 billion global management and consulting leader that integrates capabilities, investments and alliances. He managed testing, training, and data conversion efforts within the US and Europe. In these roles, he worked exclusively with SAP. He managed engagements for two large chemical companies along with Accenture themselves. He was promoted from analyst to consultant.
Andy was then transferred into the Accenture’s strategy and supply chain practice. There, he worked on manufacturing and supply chain strategy engagements in the chemicals and steel industries. Within the new department, Andy was promoted to Manager within one year but passed up the opportunity to help build a strategy arm for a local consulting firm.
Andy then became the Continuous Improvement Manager for ASM International, which is the world’s largest society for materials information. He was a member of the executive board within ASM International, and was responsible for the organization-wide implementation of Project Management. Andy holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
Andy currently holds the position of Business Analyst, Worldwide Sales for ERICO International. ERICO is a $500 million specialty construction equipment manufacturer located in 22 worldwide sites and based out of Solon, OH. He is responsible for Worldwide Sales and Sales Commission reporting.
Andy is an associate of thoughtLEADERS, LLC and provides professional training in the areas of strategy, communication, systems implementation and project management fundamentals.
More profiles coming soon
