With Board Leadership being such a critical factor in a school districts and community’s success, this breakout will provide a framework for how exemplar Boards can be built, emphasizing the individual and collective leadership talents, and the critical conditions necessary for a true team to thrive—Bonded & Aligned for Better Together Impact.
Brad Black
President, CEO, & Founder of Humanex Ventures
Brad Black has devoted more than 25 years to changing the face of organizations worldwide by redefining the value and capabilities of their human capital and culture.
By creating both “organizations and communities of excellence”, Black’s model for Humanex instills a powerful competitive advantage, with an organizational culture that maximizes the growth potential of every employee and team member, as well as provides them the concepts and tools needed to become strong leaders. His ability to select, grow, and multiply talent and culture in wide ranging industries and professions has led Black to work with organizations such as The Walt Disney Company, Whirlpool Corporation, Caterpillar, Inc., Pitney Bowes, Adventist Health System, Stryker Corporation, The Cheesecake Factory, The Gallup Organization, Talent+, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mayo Health Systems, Henry Ford Health System, Pella, HCA, UCLA Medical Center and top school systems, among others. His experience as both a practitioner and consultant, with public and private organizations, both domestically and internationally has made Black an authority on recognizing and empowering talent to create cultures of excellence and powerful legacies.
Black’s experiences have led to the founding principles of Humanex, an organization built on the experience that talent and culture drives not only the success of individuals, teams, and organizations, but the success of communities as well. By mobilizing leaders and professionals in the fields of education, non-profit, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, service industries and more, and educating them about how to recognize, develop, and multiply talent and culture, a synergy is sparked that positively impacts the health and well-being of the community.
It is this “next level” thinking and expertise that has served Black well throughout his career. From the early to mid-80’s he built a foundation of advanced practices at Pitney Bowes, one of the model “Good to Great” organizations, made famous by Jim Collins’ leading research. From this point in his early career, he joined the Stryker Corporation where he served as Vice President of Human Resources through the mid-90’s, and is directly credited for the development of the company’s highly reputable sales organization, as well as recruiting and developing many of their top leaders today. In 1994 he was named a Gallup Hall of Fame recipient for his work in building a world class integrated human resource model that drives top and sustainable organizational performance. Black’s model has been featured in two bestselling leadership books: First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths both by Marcus Buckingham, a colleague at Gallup.
Black was then recruited to The Gallup Organization in the mid 90’s, where he was a Vice President and Managing Consultant, while also serving as a Division Leader with both domestic and international responsibilities, as well as a Practice Leader for broad organizational practices and the healthcare industry. In 2003 he was recruited to a Gallup spin off, Talent+ where he led dramatic growth with his integrated model, as well as serving on the company’s Board of Directors.
Challenged by several top leaders to create a “next level” organization, with capabilities and models more advanced than what others offered, Humanex was created in 2007. A key aspect of this work has been highlighted in the popular book, Community Capitalism, which provides multiple examples of the development of top performing organizations within a community of excellence. The impact of these concepts is also highlighted in Jim Collins’ groundbreaking research in Great by Choice.
A Nebraska native, Brad Black is a graduate of the University of Nebraska and member of the Advisory Board at Western Michigan University’s Haworth College of Business. He and his wife Gloria, have a son and three daughters.