Kirsti Samuels is the founder and CEO of KS Insight, a leadership and strategy consultancy based in New York City and was the Executive Director of the Adaptive Leadership Network– a network of more than 700 leaders, change-makers, doers, thinkers, and reformers, for its founding years. Kirsti is also an Associate Professor at Columbia University where she teaches Leadership and Management in Moments of Adversity and Opportunity for Masters students at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Kirsti is an entrepreneur and has spent 25 years seeking innovative approaches to complex problems. She has worked with executive teams, senior country leadership, and armed rebel groups. She has worked extensively in highly divided societies. Clients range from the President of the Comoros Islands, the leadership of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the US Department of State, the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, the World Bank, to the American Hospital Association and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Kirsti holds a Doctorate in Law from Oxford University, a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Bachelor of Science and Law from Sydney University. She undertook her mediation training with the Swiss Government and studied Coaching at NYU. She is a founding Board member of the Harlem Wellness Center.

Dr Samuels has lived in the south of France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Kenya, Iraq, Sudan and the United States. She has taught and advised on leadership and strategy around the world. She calls New York City home.

Nadir Ahmad is Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight and the Founder & CEO of Dowling Street, a boutique consultancy that combines classic strategy consulting with emotional intelligence. Nadir is a trusted advisor to leaders of companies, governments and other institutions who are building resilient and innovative organizations. He has advised clients across sectors and industries, such as LinkedIn, Biogen, the American Hospital Association, SoulCycle, Barclays, IMAX Theatres, Google, and the City of Chicago. Non-profit clients include Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Ascend Learning, and the Coro Foundation.

Previously, Nadir worked as a consultant specializing in sales and marketing strategy for the financial services sector throughout Australia and Asia. He also spent five years in the San Francisco Bay Area in a variety of engineering roles with Silicon Valley start-ups. Nadir holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. He also holds a BS in Computer Engineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Candice A. Crawford-Zakian, Psy.D. is Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight, psychoanalytically oriented consulting psychologist and executive coach with expertise in the convergence of leadership, social identity, and unconscious group dynamics. Her practice is interdisciplinary and draws from principles of psychology, design thinking, and the creative arts. Candice brings a collaborative approach to her work by developing solutions with clients. She specializes in creating experiential learning programs that equip leaders with the cognitive agility, creativity, socio-cultural awareness, and self-awareness necessary to build and lead healthy, innovative, diverse organizations. 

Candice has worked with a wide variety of domestic and international clients. In addition to her work at KS Insight, she is a leadership development coach at INSEAD graduate business school in France. She is also a consultant with Subculture, a firm specializing in design thinking and innovation. founded by former senior consultants at IDEO and Innosight.  

Candice holds a Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology from The George Washington University.  She is an Adjunct Lecturer on leadership at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her courses cover the intersections of identity, adaptive leadership and unconscious group dynamics. Candice also frequently consults at and directs nationally held group relations conferences in the Tavistock tradition.

Outside of her consulting practice, Candice is a recording and performing artist. She has performed nationally as a songwriting vocalist with a variety of music outfits and has covered a broad span of genres including alternative rock, progressive metal, jazz and hip-hop.

Mitzi Johnson is Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight and is a leader and leadership coach and trainer with more than 20 years of experience. Mitzi is the former Speaker of the House, Vermont Legislature (91st Speaker and third female Speaker of the House). She is recognized for establishing collaborative working relationships across diverse stakeholder groups and creating a transparent and inclusive process.

Mitzi brings to her leadership training practice decades of lived examples of leading through crises and conflicts, building and strengthening organizations, and creating cultural change – with their successes and struggles. Mitzi is also a member of the inaugural design team for the Women Igniting Leadership Lab program at KS Insight.

Mitzi earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and International Development from the University of Vermont and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School where she was a member of the teaching team for Adaptive Leadership and received coaching training from Coaches Rising in the Netherlands.

Dr. Heidi Stalla is Senior Leadership Faculty at KS Insight, bringing over two decades of experience in higher education leadership and innovative program development. Currently serving as Associate Director of Academic Affairs for Yale College, she previously held the position of Dean at Yale's Pauli Murray College. Dr Stalla is also a member of the inaugural design team for the Women Igniting Leadership Lab program at KS Insight.

Dr. Stalla has played pivotal roles in establishing educational programs across global institutions, including founding the Writing Program at New York University's Abu Dhabi campus and developing experiential learning initiatives at Yale-NUS in Singapore. Her approach combines traditional pedagogical methods with creative problem-solving, focusing on experiential education and innovative teaching practices.

A Virginia Woolf scholar and accomplished writer, Dr. Stalla's publications span literary criticism, creative nonfiction, audio essays, and academic articles on writing pedagogy and experiential education. She recently completed a visiting scholarship at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, where she developed an object-biography of modernist writer Ling Shu Hua's Friendship Scroll.

Dr. Stalla holds a doctorate from Oxford University and a BA from Stanford University, where she was also a member of the 1997 NCAA championship tennis team. She further enhanced her leadership expertise through studying Adaptive Leadership with Ronald Heifetz at Harvard University.

Dr Stalla has lived in Jordan, Oman, Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi, England, Singapore, and the USA.

Dr. Lorri Sulpizio is a Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight and the Director of the Conscious Leadership Academy and the founder of the Center for Women’s Leadership at the University of San Diego. Lorri’s interests include the impact of gender dynamics, using group relations theory to understand effective team leadership, and helping leaders recognize the importance of authenticity and a strong sense of self. A former college basketball coach, Lorri uses lessons from athletics to help leaders achieve their best self. With a strong commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, Lorri uses a DEI-B lens in every program in and all of her work. Lorri challenges people to do the inner work that sets a foundation for effective leadership, and encourages people to explore their assumptions, thoughts, and the patterns that get in their way. She believes in getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, and works with all clients to create a relevant program uniquely designed for their needs.

Lorri has a PhD in leadership, an MA in sports psychology. She is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator based on the research of Brené Brown, certified in the Leadership Circle Profile, the MBTI®, and is a certified leadership coach. She focuses her work on organizations who embrace new ways of leading and living, including education, hospitals, and social enterprise. She created the Cultivate Conscious Kids program to bring a strong sense of self, wellness, and leadership to youth and teens, and works with women leaders to own their stories and find their voice. Lorri believes that great leadership be learned and comes from people making brave choices with in their lives.

Dr. Cristina Stasia is a Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight and brings over two decades of experience building the capacity of individuals, organizations, corporations, and government branches to lead more effectively and inclusively while tackling complex problems. Cristina is the Director of Leadership Training and Program Development and a Lougheed Adjunct Professor at the Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta where she helped former Canadian Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Kim. Campbell launch the Peter Lougheed Leadership College. Dr Stasia is also a member of the inaugural design team for the Women Igniting Leadership Lab program at KS Insight.

Cristina’s academic expertise is in the way that constructions of leadership mitigate our ability to effectively lead and how organic leadership movements (including Black Power and feminism) have intervened in these constructions to create meaningful change. She leverages her extensive academic DEI training and real world experiences running social justice non-profits to bring an intersectional lens to her leadership training, helping her clients level the playing field by recognizing and building the leadership capacity of non-prototypical leaders.

In addition to creating unique leadership programs and courses for executive students, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergrads, she also created and delivered custom leadership programs for Hong Kong based company Sunwah, nursing faculty across Ghana, and is currently working with the Faculty of Engineering to create their new mid-career executive risk management program. She is Principal of Level Consulting, a leadership training and consultancy based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Stuti Shukla is a Senior Leadership Faculty and Coach at KS Insight, a fellow at the Center of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Founder of Mitti Leadership Consulting, a boutique leadership consulting practice. Stuti brings over 15 years of experience as a leadership educator, coach, and researcher. She is passionate about supporting mission-driven leaders and organizations in expanding their capacity to provide leadership on the complex challenges facing their communities and organizations. She specializes in designing customized learning experiences in which leaders become intimately familiar with the complex worlds of their various identities and the invisible impact this has on their leadership efforts.

Some of her recent projects include working with mid-career professionals at Harvard, emerging and seasoned political leaders, fellows of youth fellowships in the Global South, women entrepreneurs and activists working in climate change in Asia, social change activists, Muslim women and other women of color, senior leaders of leading not-for-profits, and public education leaders. At the Harvard Kennedy School, she has co-designed a signature leadership course, Leadership from the Inside-Out, in collaboration with senior faculty. She is currently collaborating on a book based on this course. Stuti started her career as a grassroots mobilizer for children’s education in India, serving in senior leadership roles and co-founding one of India’s first education leadership initiatives.

Stuti holds a Doctorate and Masters in Education from Harvard University and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. She is trained in the Immunity-to-Change map making,  and in facilitating and analyzing the Subject-Object interviews.

Nina Blackwelder has been the program coordinator at KS Insight since 2017. She has leadership experience serving on various boards for non-profit organizations such as Scouts of America, Kiwanis International, and Sisters for Society. She founded a 501c3 based in Newnan, Georgia, supporting underserved populations. Nina holds a master's degree in Pharmaceutical Science and currently resides in the suburbs of Atlanta.

Lucy is the Chief of Staff to the CEO at KS Insight. Lucy is a dynamic professional in the field of human development. Her mission is to empower individuals and communities to tackle systemic challenges by disrupting old patterns, fostering agency, and nurturing social cohesion. With a rich educational background in psychology, philosophy, adaptive leadership, human-centered design, group dynamics, adult learning theory, coaching, and eastern contemplative practice, Lucy blends theory with her practical experience leading inclusive learning initiatives, managing projects and teams, and fostering strategic partnerships across diverse sectors. Lucy has contributed her expertise to organizations such as the Kansas Leadership Center and Wichita State University’s Community Engagement Institute, supporting nonprofits, academic institutions, coalitions, government agencies, and people at all levels of these organizations.

Rit Shrestha is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 10 years of experience as a Financial Controller and is the finance officer for KS Insight.

Professor Ron Heifetz, King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, co-developed the adaptive leadership framework and has been a crucial mentor. 

Professor Heifetz speaks extensively and advises heads of governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations throughout the world.  His research focuses on creating a conceptual foundation for the study of leadership, creating teaching, training, and consulting methods for leadership practice, and building the adaptive capacity of organizations and societies.  He is the author of the classic leadership texts, Leadership without Easy Answers, (1994), Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading with Marty Linsky (2002), The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organization and the World, (2009) with Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow. 

A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, and the Kennedy School, Ron Heifetz is a physician and cellist.  

www.hks.harvard.edu