Leadership
Howard Lieberman
Founder & Chairman
Howard Lieberman is a global innovation guide, author, executive consultant and popular speaker addressing innovation audiences around the world. He has been the chairman of SVII, the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute, a 501c(3) California Corporation since 2005.
Howard and his team have been solving innovation problems, initiating and guiding execution of innovation-critical initiatives, and crossing internal and external resource boundaries in order to accelerate scalable innovation and unleash innovation potential for decades.
Mr. Lieberman exercised his innovation chops through 20 years at Bose, Apple and DARPA, all top-of-their-field, world-class innovation cultures. As a physicist and electrical engineer he founded several technology-based entrepreneurial enterprises, and as the Dean of Cogswell Polytechnical College he created their innovation management program in 2000. Developing that program lead to the formation of SVII five years later, and Cogswell’s current MBA in Innovation Entrepreneurship. SVII has presented over 100 innovation programs covering a very wide variety of topics, and has offices in Massachusetts and Silicon Valley. As an involuntary innovator and energetic multi-instrumentalist, Howard has also found the time to perform over 1000 times in the last 30 years as a jazz artist.
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Herman Sperling
Director
As CEO of HJS Markets LLC, Herman Sperling has more than four decades of international experience in both Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial environments. Until recently he was the Senior VP of Global Web Strategy and Development at Harman International (NYSE: HAR) having been its Group VP of Marketing. He was a Member of the Board Industry Leaders of the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), served on three CEA divisional boards and chaired the CEA's Research Committee. He was the National Sales Manager and Marketing Manager at Bose Corporation, and consulted to Pioneer Electronics on the introduction of Laser Disc. Mr. Sperling was on eBay's Advisory Board and also managed Mirage Acoustics, a Canadian startup manufacturing, engineering and marketing mid-priced audio loudspeakers, which he led to multi-million dollar sales in the U.S. market.
Herman has received numerous awards for products developed, including Best Home Theater System under $2,500 from Video Review Magazine, Best Product of the Year from Business Week Magazine, and Audio Product of the Year from CD Magazine. Mr. Sperling has lectured at MIT (Sloan – advanced marketing management), UNC (entrepreneurship) and UCLA (Anderson School – product development), spoken on behalf of Microsoft (social marketing) and Tata (innovation), has performed post graduate work towards an MEd in Guidance and Counseling from Tufts University, holds a BA with majors in Psychology and Sociology from Emerson College and studies in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University.
Gary Entwistle
Director
Gary Entwistle is a skilled training and development practitioner with firsthand knowledge of management and supervision. During the past thirty years, he has provided leadership coaching and development to thousands of managers.
Gary began his career in retail marketing, followed by five years as a Human Resource specialist and six years in Training and Development for a rapidly growing regional retailer. Subsequently he joined California State Polytechnic University on the Pomona Campus as Program Director, later becoming Dean of the University Executive Management Center, Kellogg West. It was during this time that he joined a group of training and development professionals to consult at the White House.
Gary took leave of the University to actively pursue private consulting projects for domestic and global organizations. Gary is also a Senior Learning Advisor for The Next Institute and Executive-In-Residence for the Banff Leadership Institute, Alberta, Canada.
Gary recently had the opportunity to practice what he preaches. A client asked him to implement his recommendations to turn the failing business around. He worked as General Manager to restore the business to profitability; to develop policies, procedures, and practices; and to strengthen management at all levels.
Don Grayson, PhD
Director
A licensed psychologist, Don has maintained an organizational psychology consulting practice since 1981.
From 1981 – 1987 he was a Senior Consultant and a top performer for RHR International, Inc, the largest organization of consulting psychologists. Since 1987 he has maintained his own independent consulting practice. He taught part-time from 2002 – 2005 at the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management, Alliant International University, where he was rated by students highest amongst the faculty 11 of 17 criteria.
He was a contributing author in “Coaching for Leadership – How the World’s Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn”. The chapter was cited in Coaching and Mentoring: How to Develop Top Talent and Achieve Stronger Performance in the Harvard Business Essentials, Harvard Business School Press (9/04).