Kevin founded Cohesion Partners in 2001 to aid corporations, non-profits, and government agencies with systematic, proven approaches to executive leadership, performance assessment, succession planning, strategy development, and organizational alignment.
Primarily advising the boards of healthcare and education enterprises in recent years, Kevin has designed and executed robust processes and tools for board member assessments and CEO performance evaluation in addition to facilitating discussions of potential mergers and acquisitions.
In work with a regional healthcare provider, Kevin helped executives merge disparate cultures into a unified health system. He prepared corporate-wide executive competencies and proficiency standards and linked those with a system-wide leadership development program. Separately, he conducted a review of emergency department processes, systems, and staff.
For a cabinet-level department of the U.S. Government comprising 22 separate entities and 200,000 employees, Kevin constructed the 18-month multi-phase and multi-track approach to ensure there would be no gaps in leadership as the department head and each entity’s top executives departed in anticipation of a new Presidential administration. He wrote strategic communications to convey to Congress, media, and oversight groups the preparatory actions taken and protocols established. He developed charters for key committees responsible for specific transition readiness responsibilities and prepared guidance for newly appointed executives. Kevin also developed a robust succession planning approach and guided efforts to ensure a ready pipeline of capable persons proficient in relevant competencies.
Collaborating with the executives who oversee the national network of 28 U.S. Government Federal Executive Boards, a forum for communication and collaboration among Federal agencies outside Washington, DC, Kevin worked to unify and clarify the competency expectations and performance objectives for executive directors and deputy executive directors. He also helped standardize executive assessments.
In the for-profit sector, Kevin led a team working to merge four regional cellular companies into a national presence, facilitating meetings of board members and executives to reach consensus on the merged entity’s vision, mission, market positioning, and operating characteristics.
As an organizational psychologist, Kevin has investigated correlations between motivational priorities and leadership. His scholarly interests include effective governance, leader development, executive competencies, and succession planning. Kevin has taught graduate studies in organizational development at Washington, DC area universities.
Prior to launching Cohesion Partners, Kevin was vice president of operations for a customized software solutions company and directed a strategy consulting practice at a systems integration company that was later acquired by Dell Computer. Kevin also focused on strategy formation and execution while a managing consultant in the Information and Technology Strategy practice of Accenture and a principal of the Strategic Consulting Group for the telecom industry at American Management Systems.
Education
- Human and Organizational Systems, PhD, Fielding Graduate University
- Human Development, MA, Fielding Graduate University
- Organization Development Certification, Georgetown University
- Corporate Finance, MBA, University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
- Computer Science, MS, Washington University in St. Louis
- Computer Science, BS, Southeast Missouri State University