Dr. Kettner is Senior Vice President and directs LeadFirst's Assessments & Analytics team. His work focuses on facilitating the strategic decision-making of top management, performance measurement, capital investment planning and analysis, customer and culture profiling, market research, and other areas to support the decision-making of management.

George has coordinatied statistical client engagements with First USA Bank, American Express, and The Hartford Insurance Group to develop customer acquisition and retention models and causal path models which link customer perceptions and behavior to financial performance. This work applies the most advanced statistical tools available to best understand the interplay between a multiplicity of variables and relationships.

His recent work also includes the development of a capital budgeting guide, survey of best practices in capital investment methodologies, and capital investment analysis for particular large investment proposals. George has directed the development of decision support software for linking capital investment proposals to strategic goals and prioritizing such proposals. The software is based on the Economic Risk-Adjusted Present Value Economic Risk-Adjusted Present Value technique and provides users with a decision framework to incorporate management value judgments as well as hard quantitative data into decision-making. He has personally facilitated the prioritizing of capital investment proposals in meetings of senior management of organizations whose investment budgets can be measured in billions of dollars.

Dr. Kettner earned an M.A. equivalent (Economics), C. Phil. (Economics), and Ph.D. (Economics: Theory, Econometrics, Public Finance, Labor Economics) from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has held the positions of Chief Economist and Technical Director, Syllogistics, Inc.; Senior Operations Researcher, Information Spectrum, Inc.; and Principal Scientist, General Research Corp. He has 25 years of experience in economics, econometric modeling, management consulting, and customer research.
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Janice is Director of LeadFirst's Survey Research and Change Leadership practice area. She is an engaging and highly rated business partner who is passionately committed to organizational success; whether that success is focused on financial outcomes, "best in class" leadership, change implementation, operational effectiveness and productivity, employee engagement or talent management. She is able to quickly transform organizational challenges into specific plans that produce solid business results.

Clients find her accounting and finance expertise, systems thinking orientation, and her ability to connect at all levels in the organization invaluable in crafting finacially sound solutions. Janice has published several articles and presented at many national and regional conferences. She is certified in a number of assessments that provide an analytical foundation for strategic planning, building high performing executive teams, change effectiveness, increasing the organization's leadership capacity, and for improving organizational performance.

In addition to her expertise as a consultant, Janice has a wealth of professional experiences. She served as the Director of Organizational Development for Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center; as an Assistant Professor in the College of Technology at Bowling Green State University; as a Manufacturing Project Manager and as a Manufacturing IT Systems Consultant for one of the largest apparel companies in the country; and as a Cost Accountant and Internal Auditor at two of the nation's largest banks.

Her previous clients include union and non-union organizations across a range of industries; Technology, Healthcare, Retail, Consumer Products, Warehouse, Distribution, Transportation, Education, Non-Profit Social Services, Auto/Yacht/Electrical Manufacturing, Gaming, Government, Textile/Furniture Manufacturing, Financial Services, and Bio-Tech Pharmaceutical.

Janice has earned a reputation for excellence from more than two decades of projects with "tight" time frames and those requiring the balancing of conflicting organizational interests. Dr. Black was the recipient of the prestigious Cunningham Dissertation Fellowship at Virginia Tech where she received her Ph.D. She graduated summa cum laude from Appalachian State University with an undergraduate degree in Accounting and Education.
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Maria a native of Spain has lived and worked in Spain, Columbia, and the United States. She is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish, and conversational in Portuguese.

Before joining LeadFirst, Maria gained experience working internationally in a diversity of industries, including – retail, medical, manufacturing, and lodging. As an in-house customer relations specialist for Hilton, Maria successfully developed relationships, developed business with, and traveled to, customers in Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Europe, and across the US.

Maria joined the LeadFirst team in 2006 and brings her multicultural and international experience to bear in client relations throughout South America as LeadFirst’s Manager of Latin American relations. She’s also a highly requested leadership coach and expert facilitator with proven results from over 1,000 session participants. Maria lives in South Carolina with her husband and son, and enjoys traveling and spending time with her family.
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