Action Inquiry Associates

Elaine Herdman-Barker

Elaine holds a masters degree in psychology and is completing her doctorate in mentoring high potential leaders, building on years of ongoing research with Professor Bill Torbert.

In her work Elaine specialises in helping executives become more aware of their current ways of working, their approaches to problem solving, innovating and interacting with others and the gaps in their thinking which open the door to their development. Extending this to organisations, Elaine helps to identify and support their emerging talent pool and create the conditions in which the high calibre leaders of the future are retained. Her sector experience reaches across the utilities, oil and gas, financial services, motor manufacturing, leisure and IT industries.

Elaine holds a masters degree in psychology and is completing her doctorate in mentoring high potential leaders, building on years of ongoing research with Professor Bill Torbert.

In her work Elaine specialises in helping executives become more aware of their current ways of working, their approaches to problem solving, innovating and interacting with others and the gaps in their thinking which open the door to their development. Extending this to organisations, Elaine helps to identify and support their emerging talent pool and create the conditions in which the high calibre leaders of the future are retained. Her sector experience reaches across the utilities, oil and gas, financial services, motor manufacturing, leisure and IT industries.

Mary Stacey

Mary is the managing director of Context Consulting Inc., which partners with clients at the intersection of strategy, leadership and change. Guided by her belief that women’s leadership is urgently needed in today’s business environment and larger culture, she works with women in senior roles and executive education programs who want to more fully express their potential.

Mary has facilitated the Center for Emerging Leadership’s Women in Leadership program and contributed to My Story Listens to Your Story: A Women’s Leadership Anthology. She served on the YWCA’s Women of Distinction Awards Committee and the American Marketing Association’s Mentoring Exchange Commitee. Mary hosts a MasterMind group at Toronto’s Verity Club, where women focus on evolving their careers. She also designs conversations in which the voices of all generations come together, recently the Multigenerational Leadership Exchange at the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) Institute.

Mary holds an MA in Organizational Leadership and Learning, a diploma in counseling, and is an executive coach (ACTP). She is a faculty member at the Canadian Medical Association’s Physician Management Institute, where she teaches Dialogue:The Language of Complex Systems.

Dana Carman

Since 1984 Dana has coached and consulted to more then two hundred visionary leaders and organizations spanning five continents across multiple sectors of society. He has been the architect and consulting lead on several dozen large scale, multi year, organizational change efforts that have resulted in performance breakthroughs in both the client system and the industries and regions they are part of.

Dana’s clients have consistently expressed appreciation for the leadership skills and capacities that have been transferred to the organisation, that are demonstrated long after the consulting engagement has finished.

Dana received his BA in Environmental Studies from The University of Vermont. He studied in the MBA Program at San Francisco State University, and earned a graduate certificate from the Executive Excellence Program at The Center for Management Design.

He is a certified consultant in the LDF, Polarity Management, Spiral Dynamics and many other leading approaches to organizational change.