Jessie Jacob is a culture consultant and innovation coach. After working at the Sprint Accelerator and for a couple of venture-backed startups, Jessie was inspired to create a workplace culture accelerator program called the Culture Lab where she helped teams to define and improve their cultures to significantly increase performance and engagement. She has helped a number of founders and executives to be intentional with their teams and workplace cultures so they can effectively scale. Jessie has recently worked alongside NY Times Best-selling author and successful entrepreneur, Diana Kander, where they help teams to tweak their existing habits to significantly increase performance and agility. Their coaching and facilitation allow teams to bring innovation and workplace culture best practices to hire, project management, iteration, and many other team functions. They’ve worked with large organizations such as Hormel Food and a government agency to adopt habits of innovation.

Her experience with organizations large and small has taught her a number of important lessons:

· Having a workplace environment where individuals can thrive is created or destroyed through culture or the team’s habits. A culture needs to be continuously nourished and there isn’t a one-time fix.

· Teams need simple tools and exercises to help tweak their habits, increase productivity, and get a team on the same page. Jessie has distilled lessons from her last 7 years working with startups and corporate innovation teams into simple, powerful tools for teams to apply.

· Successful team cultures can’t be copied and pasted. There are overarching best practices, but each individual culture is as unique as the individuals in the organization.

Sonja has recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which led her down the path of wellbeing. First, to put herself back together and then to support others. The shorthand version of the more human company is don’t burnout and don’t be an asshole!

She is a positive psychology coach, emotional culture deck certified facilitator, yoga, meditation and breathwork teacher.  She uses her business background as well as recent discoveries in neuroscience to create unique programs and coaching with practical tools and techniques.

She is a straight-talking Scot with a slight coffee addiction, a love for red lipstick and stationery. Smiling makes everything better.  

Ramita enjoys working with leaders to help them create and maintain a healthy work environment where talents can flourish and be their best in what they do. Merging my professional experience of working in the public and private sector, I help people leaders to be aware of wellbeing, environmental and social governance while working with people.

Nowadays, people are collaborating, connecting and coordinating at a pace or scale never experienced before. Navigating through change and adapting to it has become essential for everyone at and beyond the workplace. My aim is to create an inspiring vision for change and be an active agent for the future of work. 

My WHY is to inspire positive change by curating connections - connecting people, connecting ideas, and connecting people with ideas. I’m inquisitive and energized about the process of learning. Transforming something strong into something superb is thrilling. I believe everything happens for a reason and that we are all connected. I value being considerate, caring and accepting. The future fascinates and inspires me. I see what the future might hold, and this motivates me to move toward a better approach, a better team, a better life, and a better world. My expertise and passion include helping employers identify and apply creative solutions so that they can address wellbeing at both the employee and organizational levels. I love learning about and applying new sciences and emerging strategies that help create high performing organizations. I’m also experimenting with ways we can apply design thinking and human-centered design principles to reframe worksite engagement, employee experience and wellbeing challenges to spark new ways of addressing these complex issues. I am thrilled to be a Culture First MKE Co-Lead. The Culture First Community is a group of leaders, practitioners, and change agents committed to amplifying what people are capable of being and achieving at work. 

Gallup Strengths: LEARNER | INPUT | MAXIMIZER | FUTURISTIC | CONNECTEDNESS

Gary Ware, the Founder of Breakthrough Play is a sought-after Corporate Facilitator and Keynote Speaker with nearly a decade of experience as performer in improv theatre. He assists teams with unlocking creativity, confidence, and sparks collaboration with experiential methods proven to drive peak performance.

Gary spent over a decade in the corporate world and originally pursued improv to master public speaking. He quickly discovered that combining improv and play could be a powerful solution to achieve various business challenges. Naturally, he created workshops for his team and other executives in his network to deepen relationships and improve creativity. Gary became obsessed on learning how to use play as a transformational tool and as a result, happily transitioned from marketing to pursue facilitation full time.