Our Team

Paths to Change is a network of consulting thought-leaders and change-agents who are experts in creating highly effective groups, teams, organizations, communities, and change movements.

We’ve worked together in formal and informal ways since 1995 — bringing decades of experience individually, and a collective history that adds up to centuries.

Christina Valenza	David Chilcott	Jamie Walters	Jidan Koon
Lawrence Ellis	Mercedes Martin	Michael Bell	Susan Strasburger

Christine Valenza is a graphic facilitator & visual recorder who helps groups find common ground through a shared understanding of visually-displayed information. For the last 20 years, she has been working in meeting rooms all over the world. She has recorded in small strategic groups as well as large conferences of up to 400 participants. Working with corporations, governmental agencies, universities, communities and non-profits, Christine visually encapsulates a group’s ideas in colorful keywords and images that accommodate all learning styles. Her role is to make the group’s whole process explicit and visual as a means of facilitating learning and understanding. Clients consistently value that her visual recording serves as a catalyst for more reflective conversations, innovative thinking and breakthrough solutions. While visual recording is useful in numerous client and community settings, it is especially critical to facilitating understanding and agreement-building in inter-cultural groups, virtual groups, and large-scale change initiatives. For the last two years, Christine has been working almost monthly at IMD University in Lausanne, Switzerland, helping to facilitate a streamlined action-learning method that helps groups come up with unexpected solutions to old problems.
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David Chilcott has an unusual set of skills that encompasses both the deeply technical and the deeply human aspects of computer software as well as organizational development. He has been designing and building custom software applications since 1989. In addition to bringing clients advanced systems analyst and systems architecture skills, he leads focused, task-oriented client design sessions. Additionally, his collaboration and communication skills support effective project management, consulting, facilitation and training. His ability to abstract and capture complex Information Technology system requirements and application flow, combined with his relational database application development experience, ensures that every client solution has a solid, lasting foundation. In addition to his background as a system architect, David holds a degree in group dynamics, and has completed formal training in creative problem solving, advanced group facilitation and Non-Violent Communication (NVC).
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Jamie Walters has over 20 years of experience providing change-management, communication strategy and marketing consulting to a variety of organizations and individuals experiencing fast growth, complex issues, or significant change. Her client list has included small, medium-size and large organizations across all sectors. She also specializes in coaching visionary sole-proprietors and "paradigm shifting" leaders. Jamie is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Big Vision, Small Business (Berrett-Koehler Publishers), which has been translated into five languages. She has published many articles, has been featured in USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Washington Times, and other publications, and is a regularly a guest on a variety of radio shows. Her creation of an online resource center for visionary leaders was recognized as 'best of the web' by Harvard Business School, Inc.com, and others. Earlier in her career, she was a legislative aide for the New York State Assembly Speaker and a California Assemblywoman, and set up the Commonwealth of Virginia's Superfund Community Relations program, serving more than 40 environmental cleanup communities. Jamie has a B.A. from St. John Fisher College, has completed advanced programs in Facilitating Strategic Change and Coaching for Performance, and is trained in various modalities that facilitate the shift to skillful, effective communication and conscious leadership.
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Jidan Koon supports community-based organizations, non-profits, and philanthropic foundations through offering services that help small to medium-sized social change organizations do their work intentionally, joyfully, and sustainably. With strong political analysis and community organizing experience, she has helped numerous organizations reach their leadership, diversity and sustainability goals. Whether mediating tough conflicts or facilitating a 13-organization retreat, Jidan excels at creating inclusive, collaborative environments. She has particular content-area expertise in the fields of Youth Development & Leadership Development, Community Organizing, Asian American Communities and Culture, and Public Education Reform. A proud first generation Chinese American woman, Jidan holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Masters of Public Policy (MPP) and certificate in Urban & Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
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Lawrence Ellis is the Founder & President of Paths to Change. For nearly twenty-five years, he has worked with community-based, corporate, non-profit, and public-service organizations, creating outstanding results through a rare combination of conventional organizational development approaches and cutting-edge innovations from the field of complexity-science consulting (which applies insights from the study of complex systems in science, nature, society to human organizations). He has successfully applied these hybrid approaches in a range of settings – from leading highly successful redesigns of divisions of progressive multibillion dollar corporations, to leading major change efforts in numerous nonprofits, to designing and facilitating a conference at Princeton University on complexity-science approaches to combating HIV/AIDS globally. With a deep commitment to leaving the world a better place for future generations, he makes social and environmental responsibility an integral part of the work of Paths To Change. For several years, Lawrence served as a Director with Interaction Associates, one of the world’s oldest change-consulting firms. Subsequently he was a Senior Consultant with the Organizational Effectiveness Division of the Northern California division of AAA, a multibillion dollar travel, insurance and road-services company. He was introduced to some of the foundational concepts of complexity-science consulting while at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, in an interdisciplinary program focused on individual & large-scale change.

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Mercedes Martin has pioneered the introduction of global diversity and leadership development programs in several countries in Africa, Central America and South America, and throughout the United States. Mercedes has special expertise in global cultural competence, intercultural team-building and leadership development. A native Spanish-speaking coach, international consultant and conference speaker, Mercedes understands the social, political and economic contexts of client situations and consistently develops dynamic and powerful interventions. A graduate of the University of Miami, Mercedes holds a Masters Degree in Leadership Development from the University of San Francisco. She also holds diversity facilitation certificates from the Equity Institute, IBM, and R. Thomas Consulting. As a United States Air Force Officer for twelve years, Mercedes was a certified Master Facilitator in “Total Quality Management.” As a specialist in resolving cross-cultural conflicts and rebuilding workplace teams, Mercedes is also certified as an advanced facilitator using the conflict resolution model of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication (PNDC).
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Michael Bell is an acclaimed leader in the fields of organizational development and strategic planning. Michael designs state-of-the-art training, leadership development programs and conference presentations, and serves as an international consultant and executive coach. A systems thinker, Michael is an expert in assisting organizations in understanding their cultures and their need for transformational learning. He has special expertise in organizational assessment, teambuilding and mentoring programs. A graduate of Cornell University, Michael is a core member of two national think tanks, Fetzer Institute’s Healing the Heart of Diversity and the Bohmian Dialogue Research Group. Michael’s doctoral studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies were in cross-cultural communication with a focus on Adult Learning and Change. Michael is also an advanced facilitator in the conflict resolution model of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication (PNDC).
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Susan Strasburger brings twenty years of experience as an executive coach, trainer and group facilitator, working primarily in the corporate sector. She partners with clients to strengthen their capacity to become exceptional leaders in their organizations – through high-potential leadership, leadership facilitation skills, team development initiatives, train-the-trainer programs, as well as individual coaching and conflict-resolution interventions. In particular, clients value her masterful design of effective and meaningful processes for learning, growth and change. Her work incorporates a strong theoretical framework and is deeply rooted in leading-edge collaborative methodologies. Susan holds degrees from Yale University and Mills College, in addition to numerous certifications in coaching, leadership, and communication. Her PhD in Psychology focused on presence, paradox and transformation in the workplace.
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