Our Team

Sheella Mierson - Member Consultant

Western States, USA
510-529-4228
sheella.mierson@sociocracyconsulting.com

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Sheella helps individuals and organizations design structures, processes, and relationships for creative collaboration. She supports her clients aligning goals, policies, & operations throughout their organization; setting up collaborative structures & processes to make policy decisions; accessing their group’s collective intelligence; and designing their relationships for collaboration and productivity. She works on multiple levels, from organizational to interpersonal, empowering clients to address the challenges they face. Her passion is to create joyful, productive relationships and workplaces, where everyone’s voice matters.

Sheella draws on broad experience as a teacher, business trainer, facilitator, and organizational consultant. Initially trained as a biophysicist, she became skilled at fostering collaborative teamwork in both research and classroom environments and has published articles on highly interactive methods of teaching in academic and business settings. After a career in science, she shifted from laboratory research to the people skills that deeply impact the outcomes of scientific ventures.

Originally focused on people skills for the workplace, Sheella incorporated sociocracy into her consulting practice, Creative Learning Solutions, as the most effective method for making decisions and for creating organizational cultures that support strong collaborative skills. She is a partner in Blueprint of We California. She has worked with clients across several continents in the pharmaceutical, insurance, financial, apparel, service, and health care industries, as well in higher education, government, and the nonprofit sector.

Education, credentials, awards

  • PhD in Biophysics from the University of Michigan.
  • Certified Facilitator for the Blueprint of We Collaboration Document, used to build trust, creativity, effortlessness, and resilience into relationships.
  • Hall of Fame member, North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO).
  • Extensive training in counseling skills, organizational change, leadership, conflict resolution, facilitation, diversity, workshop design, and sociocracy.

Gina Price - Member Consultant

Australia
+61 8 9384 8972
gina.price@sociocracyconsulting.com

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Gina has been interested in the way people organize themselves since spending a year on an Antarctic Base in 1985. She has gravitated towards experiences of working in groups to achieve goals on wilderness adventures, scientific expeditions, living in a Quaker community in Alaska, and in contributing to an ecovillage development project.

Gina has been learning about and working with the Sociocratic method since 2004. In 2006 she initiated the formation of the Australasia Training Circle for Sociocracy which adopted the approach of “using the method to promote the method.” In 2007 this resulted in the group hosting the first training event in Australia after which Gina, under the mentorship of Tena Meadows O’Rear, consulted to the first Australian business to trial Sociocracy. In April 2008 Gina became a certified trainer in Sociocracy through Sociocratisch Centrum Nederland. In May 2008 she worked alongside Tena to present training to the Sydney Coastal EcoVillage and at the Business Leaders Forum on Sustainability, Parliament House, Canberra. In September 2008 she gave her first solo training in Fairbanks, Alaska.

In July 2009 Gina completed a Certificate of Coaching with Coach School, Bentley, and brings a coaching approach to her work with individuals and organizations. Since then she has conducted a number of seminars, introductory evenings and further trainings. In teaching and promoting Sociocracy, Gina continues to develop approaches that provide opportunities for individuals to learn by doing.

Education and credentials

  • Certified Trainer in Sociocracy, Sociocratisch Centrum Nederland, 2008
  • Certificate of Coaching, Coach School, Bentley Western Australia, 2009
  • Certificate III in Permaculture, Eltham College, Victoria, 2011
  • PhD - Upper Atmosphere Physics in the Auroral Zone, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 1989

Francine Proulx-Kenzle - Member Consultant

Western Prairies, Canada
306-533-3965
francine.proulx-kenzle@sociocracyconsulting.com

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The vision of Francine Proulx-Kenzle is a world in which all voices are heard with respect and candor, and where decisions are made collaboratively to contribute to a better living environment. As such, “service and connection” are two values radiating through Francine’s work, explaining her passion to contribute to the well-being of individuals, organizations, and communities.

In her 25-plus years experience in the fields of management and the organizational arts, she has often observed individuals making up the sum of the parts in an organization. She believes organizations thrive best when individuals experience a sense of belonging, freedom to be authentic, and having their voices heard.

Francine started learning sociocracy in 2007 through her mandate as in-house trainer at the University of Regina. This opportunity opened a door to the world of self-management, circular organizations, shared power, and equivalence. Since her certification as a sociocratic organizational consultant in 2011, Francine has trained a variety of individuals and supported sociocracy implementation in both the educational and non-profit sectors.

Her home base is the western Canadian prairies (Saskatchewan). where she lives with her husband on a ranch that provides a home to a few horses and cats (and many prairie gophers). Here again, service and connection reverberate through her volunteer involvement in the local community.

Francine est prête à vous appuyer dans la langue de votre choix, en français ou en anglais.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Education, credentials, awards

  • 2011-2019 Sociocratic Organizational Consultant, Sociocratisch Centrum.
  • 2020-2023 Consultant in Sociocracy, International Sociocracy Certification Board
John Schinnerer

John Schinnerer - Member Consultant

Western States & Hawai’i-Pacific
510-982-1334
john.schinnerer@sociocracyconsulting.com

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John is a whole systems design consultant, teacher, and facilitator for cultural and ecological systems for a variety of public, private, and nonprofit clients. Since 1996, he has studied, worked, taught and published in the realms of human relatings, governance and decision-making systems, appropriate technology and ecological design. He applies his wide-ranging observations of and experience with cultural and ecological systems to all aspects of his practice.

As TSCG’s western states and Hawai'i-Pacific regional representative, John brings to bear awareness and integration of existing cultural patterns in his inclusive approach to Sociocratic organizational design and facilitation.

The methods, tools and techniques that John offers invite clients to maximize clarity, honesty, and integrity while also enhancing individual and group efficiency and effectiveness - in other words, to get things done and have more fun! He helps organizations recognize that success for people who want to accomplish something together is determined by how well they work, play, and make decisions together.

Education and credentials

  • Master's Degree in Whole Systems Design, with a focus on cultural and ecological designing

Erin Young - Member Consultant

Australia
erin.young@sociocracyconsulting.com

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Erin helps change agents access wisdom and tools to collaborate and thrive for a better world - activating group intelligence to turn inspiration into impact. Collaborative decision-making and governance tools (Sociocracy) and holistic design for people systems (Social Permaculture) are her primary frameworks; all nature-inspired and informed.

Erin is a consultant, trainer, mediator, and facilitator. She holds a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering (Hons) from Brisbane's Griffith University (2004), and gained her first permaculture design certificate in 2010 in Portugal. Based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, Erin lives with her husband in a forest cottage within a regional community of practical creatives.

Education and credentials

  • Sociocracy training, consultation & coaching (2012)
  • Circle facilitation (2015)
  • Social Permaculture training & consultation (2016)
  • Dynamic Groups Facilitation (2012)
  • Mediation and Conflict Transformation (2017)
  • Graphic Recording and Facilitation (2019)
  • Public speaking and workshop presentation (2012)
  • Permaculture Design Certificate (2010)
  • Bachelor of Environmental Engineering (Hons) (2004)
Diana Leafe Christian

Diana Leafe Christian - Associate Member

828-669-9702
diana.leafe.christian@sociocracyconsulting.com

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Diana is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities  and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (New Society Publishers, 2003, 2007), and former editor of Communities magazine. She teaches sociocracy for ecovillages, cohousing communities, and other kinds of intentional communities in North America and internationally.

Diana has the ability to make complex issues simple and clear, both in teaching and in writing. She plans for her Communities magazine article series on sociocracy for intentional communities to become a booklet on sociocracy for communities.

Diana became a sociocracy trainer by taking workshops, then assisting workshops, then co-leading workshops with other TSCG members, including John Buck, Sheella Mierson, Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, and Gina Price. Additional learning came from writing her Communities magazine article series on sociocracy with feedback from sociocracy experts including John Schinnerer, John Buck, Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, UK trainer James Priest, and We the People co-author Sharon Villines.

Diana lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, USA.