Meet Our Team

Shannon Wallis advises industry, independent sector, and philanthropy c-suite executives on strategy, organization performance, culture change, corporate governance, and social responsibility. She works with their leaders to create strategies and build capabilities that achieve results. Prior to founding Cascade Leadership, Shannon was the global director of high-potential leadership development at Microsoft and the chief architect of an award-winning global leadership program.

Shannon has worked with over twenty thousand leaders on six continents to launch big ideas and create new realities for their leadership, teams, and organizations. From Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Coca-Cola to non-profits such as Grameen Foundation, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, and Trinity Education Foundation, Shannon blends knowledge and know-how to skillfully work through the barriers that can hinder results.

Shannon believes anything is possible and change is a series of baby steps taken along a path to transformation. Having walked 500 miles across Spain without any prior hiking experience, one could say she knows what she is talking about. She chronicles her adventure in WE the Change: Launching Big Ideas and Creating New Realities. In it, she provides a roadmap for anyone yearning to transform their life, organization, or community. In addition, she has contributed to six books on leadership and talent management which can be found on the Resources page.  She serves on the advisory. She serves on the advisory board of United Planet, whose mission is to create a world in which all people understand, respect, and support one another.

As a distinguished facilitator and trainer, executive and team coach, author, and keynote speaker, Shannon is certified by several different governing bodies including International Coach Federation, The Leadership Circle, Outthinker Strategic and Innovative Thinking, NeuroLeadership Institute, Hogan Assessments, World Institute of Action Learning, among others, to lead large-scale engagements leveraging these methodologies and practitioner tools. Shannon holds an MBA from Duke University and a BS in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University. She holds the Professional Coach Certification (PCC) designation from the International Coach Federation.

Shannon invites you to download her free Cascade Leadership app to get to know her better and support your own development.

Ann Boyum supports leaders at all levels of leadership and key transitions. She specializes is helping leaders reach new heights by bringing clarity to their gifts, talents, and blind spots. Ann’s work spans retail, healthcare, air-medical, mental health, technology, and non-profits.

With over 20 years in leadership development, Ann trains, mentors, and supervises new and experienced leadership coaches worldwide. She brings positive energy and mindfulness to everything she does. Ann is certified by the International Coach Federation, Coach Supervision Academy, Hogan Leadership Assessment, Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, Team Coaching International, World Institute of Action Learning, Shift Positive 360, and The Leadership Circle, among others.

Ann facilitates coaching skills programs and is known for her live-coaching demos. She earned her BS in English and Communications from The University of St. Catherine and leadership studies at Adler Graduate School. When she isn’t working, Ann and her husband love to travel, hike, and snowmobile.

Chuck Appleby is a globally recognized organization development consultant with clients in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. His major focus has been leadership development. Chuck’s background includes serving as a department head on a nuclear submarine and a company officer in two consulting firms.

Chuck is the co-founder of the World Institute for Action Learning, and Action Learning Source, organizations dedicated to unleashing the power of peers helping peers. His work spans small business, industry, non-profits, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies.

Chuck has a Ph.D. from The School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Economics from Dartmouth College. He is certified as a Master Action Learning Coach. Chuck has taught as an adjunct professor in human and organizational learning at The George Washington University and Georgetown University. Outside of work, Chuck enjoys vacationing with his wife and three sons.

Jesse King consults in leadership, anti-racism, organizational development, and philanthropy. He’s worked for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, The Black Community Crusade for Children, and the Center for Creative Leadership. He has worked as an adjunct trainer with the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management and has served on the board of directors of Net2Phone and REI.

Most recently, Jesse served as the Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for the Daniels Fund and manager at the Rockefeller Foundation, focused on the development and engagement of promising social entrepreneurs and emerging philanthropists. He has also served on numerous local and national nonprofit boards.

Jesse is founder and Managing Director for Fulcrum Advisors LLC, a consulting firm that provides leadership development, executive coaching, anti-racism learning, restructuring, and strategic planning services to organizations and teams in the private, public, and independent sectors.

Montserrat (Montse) Auso is an international leadership and organizational consultant, facilitator, and executive coach. Montse connects deeply with people and she has a passion for bringing out the wisdom in individuals and the collective best in teams.

For 25 years, Montse led programs in leadership and organizational culture for Fortune 100 companies around the globe. As Senior Faculty for the Center for Creative Leadership, Montse designed and delivered programs in USA, Europe, and Latin America. As a senior associate for consulting firms, her projects include culture transformation, team performance, and executive and team coaching.

Montse is an accredited coach from the International Coach Federation, a trained Mindfulness Facilitator from UCLA, and is certified in a variety of assessments. Montse has an MS degree in geology from the University of Utah and an MSS in clinical social work from Bryn Mawr College. Outside of work, her passion has always been traveling and adventure.

Yvonne is a seasoned professional who brings more than 20 years of experience helping individuals, teams, and organizations transform. She honed her skills as a leader with General Electric, Microsoft, and Unity Technologies, driving organizational success through innovative leadership development, talent management, change acceleration, and process improvement solutions. As founder of Holosophy Leadership Consulting, she now works with leaders at all levels in diverse industries and fields, helping them increase their capacity and skills to take on complex challenges. A passionate traveler, Yvonne has also lived and worked in Europe and India and draws on that experience to help clients build their global leadership.

As a designer, facilitator, and coach, Yvonne creates dynamic and high-impact leadership development experiences. She works with leadership teams to build their individual and collective leadership and be more effective together. Individual coaching engagements often involve helping leaders scale into bigger roles or new organizations, catalyze significant organizational change, take their business to the next level, or navigate increasing complexity.

Yvonne has worked with leaders from diverse organizations including Unity Technologies, Microsoft, GE, Blackbaud, National Instruments, Spiceworks, Express Scripts, American Airlines, Trulia, Symantec, F5 Networks, New York Presbyterian Hospital, St. David’s Foundation, and Digital Green.

Yvonne holds a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management as well as certifications from The Gestalt Institute’s International Organization, Systems Development program, and The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara coaching program. She’s a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation. Yvonne is trained in T-group methodologies by the National Training Lab (NTL) and the Immunity to Change methodology by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. She works with many assessments including The Leadership Circle Profile, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Instrument, MBTI, WorkPlace Big 5, FiroB, and EQ instruments.

Yvonne is committed to giving to the community and volunteers as a coach for non-profit executives. She is based in Austin, Texas.

Karen Wilson is an award-winning consultant in leadership development, who is passionate about working with individuals and teams to improve their effectiveness and potential. Karen delights in opportunities to leave leaders, organizations, and society better than she found them.
Prior to exclusively focusing on leadership development, coaching, and facilitation, Karen served clients as a management consultant for largely public sector clients for over 25 years at firms such as Arthur Andersen and PwC. She joined PwC in 2008 and was admitted to the partnership in 2012. She was selected to be on the PwC Chairman’s Partner Advisory Committee, has held P&L responsibility, and built deep client relationships and high-performing teams, managing business units of 500+ people. Throughout her consulting career, Karen is a leader who creates leaders, internally and with clients.
Karen focused her masters’ degree (M.D.E., University of Maryland) studies on adult learning, and has designed, developed, and delivered a wide variety of training programs in leadership development as well as other technical topics throughout her career. She has her executive and leadership coach certification from Leadership Systems, Inc. She also has certifications in facilitation (Association for Talent Development), action learning (World Institute for Action Learning), and administration of the Leadership Circle ProfileTM 360o tool.
Karen also holds two bachelor's degrees from Boston University (B.S. Journalism, B.A. History). Originally from Rochester, NY, she has lived her adult life in Washington, DC, where she lives with her husband, dog, and two teenage sons - for whom she can often be found on the sidelines of a soccer field or watching a sport (rock) climbing competition in gyms across the country.

Sue has 25+ years of progressive leadership responsibility in Organization Design and Development in companies as diverse as large Fortune 100 tech companies, a rapid growth startup, and the largest healthcare system on the west coast. She has deep expertise in leadership team performance, talent strategy and solutions, cultural assessment and alignment, and business transformation. She is an accomplished, trusted, collaborative, and human-centered leader that uses data, insights, and innovation to form practical and powerful solutions that yield exceptional results for the business and its people.

At Microsoft, she is best known for her work on team effectiveness for all types of teams. She created the global go-to approach for leadership team performance across the company. Sue collaborated with Jon Katzenbach Partners and was a sought-after team coach to create breakthrough performance with global leadership teams and their leaders as they drove change in their organizations. She also worked with numerous executives and organizations at Microsoft who were experiencing environmental shifts and organizational challenges that created the need to transform the way they were working.

At Providence/Swedish Health, Sue was instrumental in driving a values-based culture transformation and also led enterprise-wide efforts to improve first year turnover through the implementation of innovative practices for on-boarding new employees.

At Great Plains Software, she experienced the challenges of moving from startup to scale-up. She played a critical role in the integration of ten acquisitions in two years – with the overarching goal of ensuring Great Plains did not lose its cultural roots as it grew. She was also a key player in the globalization strategy – driving consistency of practices across global offices to create efficiencies.

Her background and education are in business and organization development. Sue holds a Master’s of Science degree in Organization Development (MSOD) from Pepperdine University, Culver City, California, and various certifications in leadership, team and organization development.

Born and raised in the Midwest, Sue now enjoys the outdoor activities of the Pacific Northwest where she and her husband are raising three sons.

Erik Mazziotta is a leadership consultant and executive coach specializing in leadership development, team performance, and coaching programs. He combines senior-level business experience with leading-edge approaches to leader development. With an integrative approach that is both pragmatic and transformative, Erik expands self-awareness, increases emotional intelligence, establishes disciplined practices, and builds execution skills.

For 15 years, Erik built leadership capabilities for companies including Amazon, Citibank, Conoco, Google, Honda, Kuehne+Nagel, Microsoft, M.D. Anderson Hospital, Lockheed Martin, and Yahoo. At Citibank, Erik held consumer banking management positions, specializing in strategic planning, new business development, and business turnarounds. Erik then held roles as CFO in Venezuela and CEO in Panama.

Erik received his B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relationship from Cornell University and served as an adjunct faculty member at Denver University’s MBA program. He’s conducted studies in leadership, personal mastery and coaching, and is certified in individual and organizational assessment instruments.

Asli Aker is a Global Leadership & Organizational Development Expert with over 20 years of experience. She partners with corporate, nonprofit, and start-up executives around the globe on organization development, leadership & team capability, strategy execution, talent management, culture, and scale for growth.

As a facilitator, consultant, and executive coach, Asli is certified in The Leadership Circle, Polarity Management, Co-Resolve, Case-In-Point, Hogan, Strengths Finder, Energy Leadership Index, Total SDI, and Emotional Intelligence. She is accredited by the International Coach Federation as a Professional Certified Coach.

Asli has contributed to the Human Centered Leadership program by Stanford University & Pir Consulting, Secrets of Working Across Five Continents, a book by a collection of global professionals, and publications by Organization Solutions. She holds a BSc. in Public Administration & Political Science and an M.A. in Human Resources. Asli loves to read, travel, and eat and socialize with family & friends.

CJ Liu is an executive coach who helps leaders connect to their inner genius, accelerate their careers, and find more meaning in their work. She mixes compassion, creativity, humor, and mindfulness with a hardcore, strategic mindset.

A 20-year veteran of corporate America, CJ understands the demands faced by her clients at firms like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce. She developed her strong analytical and operational orientation as a math/econ major at Duke University, followed by eight years in finance at General Electric and Clorox. CJ later earned an MBA in strategy from UC Berkeley.

In her 11 years at Microsoft, she held roles in product marketing, product planning, business development, and program management, launching ten products. Outside of work, CJ has found her true passion as an ICF accredited coach for the last 18 years. She is a trained mediator, a yoga teacher, and hosts a popular podcast.

Mary Beth Maines is an executive and leadership coach working in technology, biotech, consumer, and nonprofit organizations, helping leaders increase their impact and effectiveness. With 20+ years of experience as an executive, consultant, and leader, she is a skilled advisor on executive presence, leadership communications, and presentation skills. Mary Beth has coached leaders in over 12 countries.

Mary Beth is certified by the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a PCC and through the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) as a CPCC. She is a certified practitioner in The Leadership Circle Profile™, The Collective Leadership Assessment™, Insights Discovery™, and Hogan Assessments™.

She has taught at the University of Washington and is a frequent speaker/trainer. She earned her BS from the University of Illinois as well as graduate level work at the University of Michigan in HR and organizational design. Outside of work, Mary Beth enjoys travel, adventure, gardening, and reading.

Shannon Banks works with organizations to bring their social purpose to life through their people. Through experiences that develop self-awareness, expand world views, and enrich skillsets, Shannon helps leaders align organizations around a shared reason to be, for a more engaged workforce and stronger impact.

Shannon is a consultant, facilitator, and executive coach with experience working with leaders and teams across sectors. Previously, Shannon spent 17 years at Microsoft in a variety of global leadership roles across the business and HR. She has won international awards for her work and is a sought-after public speaker.

Shannon was the first coach certified in the UK by the World Institute for Action Learning (WIAL). Shannon holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Birmingham, England. She is certified by the NeuroLeadership Institute and is accredited as an ACC with the International Coach Federation. Shannon lives outside London with her husband and daughter.

Jayne Ramírez Spector has more than 30 years of experience developing and facilitating corporate learning experiences. She began her career on the technical side as a consultant in New York City in 1987, helping law firms adopt the latest technology. After nine years of technical consulting in a variety of industries including pharma, finance, telecom, auto, and retail, JR had an opportunity to facilitate soft skills programs for technical customers. The years of techinical consulting enabled JR to relate and communicate to a technical audience. The courses she has delivered have focused on Leadership, Conflict Negotiation, Team Building, Influencing, and Diversity and Inclusion. Her driving force is to help people improve their lives through learning.

For the past six years, JR’s primary focus has been developing and delivering Diversity and Inclusion programs for global companies. With her bi-cultural upbringing and multi-racial family, she was destined for this work. JR is honored to walk alongside her clients on this important journey towards inclusiveness. Her favorite saying is, “If there’s a heart beating in your chest then there’s unconscious bias in your brain. It’s part of the human condition.”
JR earned a BA in Education and Spanish from William Paterson University in New Jersey. She is originally from Southern California and lived on both coasts and in Europe before making Seattle her home more than 20 years ago. When she is not designing and delivering training, she is a devout gardener and tennis player.

Current and past clients: Barnes & Noble, Chrysler, Discovery Channel, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, and Netflix, among others.

Dr. Mike Grevlos is a motivational psychologist and coach who specializes in helping athletes and high performers acquire higher levels of expertise, overcome internal obstacles to competitive performance, and enhance their well-being along the way. He is in his 3rd decade of coaching and is a professor of psychology at the University of Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Dr. Grevlos focuses his teaching on Motivation and Emotion, Sport and Exercise Psychology, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Psychology & Christianity. His coaching is science-based and field-tested and founded upon universal principles and practices that readily translate across domains.
Dr. Grevlos has been a sought-after presenter on motivation, performance, and well-being to several companies and leadership organizations and presented his original work on expertise and motivation to audiences of sport psychologists, motor learning specialists, and Olympic coaches. Dr. Grevlos also serves as a consultant to mental coaches and to PING, a major golf equipment company located in Phoenix, AZ. He is a member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and the Association for Psychological Science.
Dr. Grevlos is the author of The Motivation Game: A Course on the Psychology of Golf Improvement, which has been an Amazon Best Seller in the US and the UK, as well as an award winning doctoral dissertation on skill acquisition in golf. He has been a popular podcast guest, having been re-invited by several hosts. He was called “…the smartest person I have met in golf” by a high profile sports broadcaster and podcast host. As an athlete, Dr. Grevlos was an NCAA record-setting collegiate baseball player and has won state championships in both baseball and golf.

Carol Wood Rice is program manager for leadership development experiences at Cascade Leadership. She organizes and works with clients to implement development programs while connecting with coaches and facilitators to ensure all details of programs are in place.

Carol earned a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and a Masters of Education in the area of Early Childhood at the University of West Georgia. She continued her education at Auburn University, completing certification in School Psychology.

Carol served as the Director of the Testing Center for the School of Education at the University of West Georgia. She taught first and second grades and served as a School Psychometrist in Georgia. Upon moving to Connecticut, Carol held the position of School Psychologist. In Texas, she was the Coordinator of Substitute Teachers. Carol managed the hardware/software installation and implementation of a system that recorded attendance for 1200 employees and automated scheduling of substitute teachers. She, also, designed and conducted training for all substitute teachers in the district. Carol served as Registrar of a 2200 student high school. Her duties included the management of records for current and past students, evaluation of transfer students, and liaison between the school and colleges.

In 2000, Carol joined Solomon Software in the Dallas Solomon Technology Center. Solomon Software was acquired by Great Plains Software and later acquired by Microsoft. She also worked with Tribridge, a Microsoft Dynamics partner prior to returning to Microsoft managing leadership development programs.

In her spare time, Carol enjoys traveling the world with her husband.

Eric Olson helps people and organizations embrace the power of change. His expertise is increasing resilience to create change-thriving managers and organizations.

Growing up in Asia, he traveled through over 40 countries, enabling Eric to see firsthand the power of personal, interpersonal, enterprise, and cultural change. His academic research focused on the characteristics of people and organizations that thrive in the midst of change. His work on coaching resilient leaders was published in the Harvard Business Review.

He applied his research to organizational and leadership development efforts with Global 1000 companies. He has designed, developed, and facilitated multi-year initiatives at firms like Novartis, Microsoft, UBS, The Coca-Cola Company, Oxford University, and Bank of America.

Eric served as either the regional or global head of consulting for three publicly traded global firms and coached over 5,000 executives and managers from 30+ countries, including CEOs at the World Economic Forum annual meeting.

Jason’s purpose is to help people do their best work. Together with a diverse list of high profile, global clients, he has designed some of the planets most ambitious and unforgettable human transformation programs. Jason specializes in purpose, values and culture activation, leadership development and mentoring, and executive team improvement.

Jason is Australian and has lived in the United Kingdom since 2011. In Australia, he was the managing partner at a specialist consulting firm, Group Head of People and Organisational Development at Telstra, and started his career with Apple and Dimension Data.

He has worked in over 40 countries, including United States, Denmark, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Mexico, India, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and across Europe.

Jason facilitates workshops with groups from twelve to three thousand, and from CEO to graduate. As a facilitator, he works hard to create a space where people learn through engaging, transformative experiences.

A recognized technology leader, corporate trainer, and talent development architect, Melerick is known for both crafting the requisite vision to achieve business goals and inspiring the next generation to pursue STEM careers. Melerick offers a unique blend of executive coaching and global team building experience, along with a strong background as an engineer and systems analyst.

For 15 years, Melerick helped global executives and organizations accelerate both their performance levels and business acumen. With extensive experience leading teams, he has developed a curriculum for success that accelerates corporate performance.

Melerick holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering. He is passionate about his community, serving on several non-profit boards across the country. From 2014-2015, he served as the National Professionals Chair for the National Society of Black Engineers and is a past officer for the Dallas Chapter of the Association of Talent Development.

Sherry Bisaillon brings more than 30 years of business management experience to her clients. As a former business leader, she has a strong passion for aligning business and people strategies for success. As an executive coach, dynamic facilitator, and consultant, Sherry is recognized for her global perspective and results-oriented approach that enables leaders and their teams to achieve incredible outcomes.

Prior to coaching and consulting, Sherry transitioned from an eleven-year career at Microsoft. She and her global team led worldwide leader, manager, and high-potential development for the Sales, Marketing, and Services Group. Comprised of more than 50,000 employees, in 190+ countries, this group delivered on over $90 billion in revenue annually.

Before Microsoft, Sherry worked at Dell Computer where she designed and executed the people capability strategy for 2,500 employees across the US, Canada, and Latin America. Prior to her career in Human Resources, Sherry held leadership roles in Business Development, Sales, and Marketing at GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter Healthcare. She knows what it is like to lead in rapidly changing environments while being accountable to objectives and the bottom line.

Some key areas where Sherry helps leaders create impact include:
- Scaling to lead effectively across a larger, more complex organization
- Integrating organizations while minimizing ramp-up time and maximizing output
- Leading large-scale organizational transformations
- Making strategic career shifts
- Quickly building a cohesive, collaborative, and productive team by building trust, accountability, and common approach to delivering lofty goals

Dr. Jeff McHenry is an innovative, highly experienced Leadership and Organization Development professional with a strong track record at helping business leaders and organizations achieve better results. Jeff has deep expertise in coaching and developing senior leaders, high-potential development, succession planning, and business-driven transformational change. He frequently speaks and delivers workshops on leadership and organizational development at professional conferences, including the Conference Board and the Human Resource Planning Society. He is the Principal of Rainier Leadership Solutions, which he founded in September 2011. His clients have included Cigna, Juniper Networks, 3M, the Gates Foundation, US Plastic Corporation, and Microsoft. Jeff is also an Adjunct Professor of Management at Georgetown University, where he teaches in the university’s executive education programs.

Previously, Jeff spent 18 years at Microsoft Corporation, where he held a variety of roles, including Director Leadership and Organization Development for Microsoft’s Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region; Senior Director People & Organization Capability for Microsoft’s Worldwide Sales, Marketing & Services Group; and Senior Human Resource Director for Microsoft North America. His last role at Microsoft was General Manager, Leadership Development & Recruiting, where he was responsible for executive recruiting and talent management, leadership and high potential development, and organizational development for the entire Corporation. During his time in this role, Microsoft won several prestigious awards for leadership development, including a 2011 Top 20 Companies for Leadership award from the Hay Group, a 2011 Best Practice Award from the European Foundation for Management Development, and a 2010 Action Learning Organization Award from the World Institute for Action Learning.

Jeff received a BA with Honors from Bethel College in St Paul, Minnesota, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. He served as the Society’s President from 2006-2007.

Ron Higgs is a veteran, engineer, business executive, and published author. He has more than 25 years of experience in leadership, operations, engineering management, and program management. He has worked in several industries and held leadership positions in startups, small companies, and large corporations.

As an Executive Coach and Strategic Business Advisor, Ron draws on his experience in naval aviation as a foundation for his expertise. He is a technically adept systems thinker who leads others to seek continuous improvement by solving the right problems, building relationships, and inspiring others.

Coaching is second nature to Ron as he started coaching early in his career as a Naval Officer. Having held several technical leadership positions, Ron is adept at leadership and executive coaching for those with technical backgrounds. With a background in mathematics and engineering, Ron understands how to guide those with STEM backgrounds in their transition from their roles as individual contributors to roles of people managers and leaders.

Ron holds a BS in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy, an MS in Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a certificate in Engineering Flight Test from the US Naval Test Pilot School.