Our Team

An Adjunct Professor of Communications since 2002 at the Smith School of Business, UMD, since 2010, Ronni is also a Professor of Management Communications at the Stern School of Business at NYU. Previously, she taught communication courses at the Wharton Business School.

Ronni has delivered workshops and seminars to thousands of executives in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America on presentation skills, consultative selling and management communications. Her talent is helping others make complex concepts easy to communicate and implement.

Consistently rated as a top speaker at industry and leadership conferences, Ronni has worked in a variety of industries including bio-tech, film, plastics, technology, energy, and government contracting. Her clients included GE, Corning Glass, Houston Biotech, Schlumberger, Hewlett Packard, SAIC, Entergy, United Technologies and Marriott, as well as many leading financial services companies.

Ronni Burns holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts in Communication Science from the University of Connecticut. Ronni is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC). She has held NASD licenses 7, 22, 24 and 63. In her book, Communication Essentials: A Sell-abration, she shares her insights into the complicated business of building relationships.

Kathy’s work with executives spans a wide variety of industries and geographies, including health care and life sciences, financial and professional services, technology, consumer products, energy, aerospace and defense, and manufacturing. Her client list includes Bank of America, Cardinal Health, Children’s Miracle Network, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Digicel, The Estee Lauder Companies, FINRA, GlaxoSmithKline, India Ministry of Finance, Itua Unibanco, McKesson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal DSM, Schneider Electric, Siam Commercial Bank, Temasek Management Academy, UnitedHealth Group, Westpac Bank Australia, and the World Bank.

In addition to her executive development work, Kathy’s industrial and consulting experience includes advising senior leadership teams in the areas of strategic formulation, leading under uncertainty, and bridging the gap between strategy and execution.

Kathy received her B.S. degree in theoretical mathematics from Auburn University, her M.S. degree in Decision Sciences from Georgia State University, and her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering (concentration in statistics) from Northwestern University.

Jenna’s professional career, spanning 20 years, began with a focus on the design, development and implementation of educational programs within leadership ranks. In her years at PwC, Jenna worked, in collaboration with the Hudson Institute, to establish a sales coaching program and coached cross-functional sales teams. Jenna furthered her career as an affinity and Lean Six Sigma coach as well as a designer of blended learning programs for Executives. Results include increase in revenue stream, decrease in cost, new innovative solutions, and over 15 individual promotions.  In addition, Jenna has consulted with the Chicago Bar Association to create a women’s coaching circle and is the developer of CollegeLaunch™. Currently running her own company, Jenna coaches action learning teams, is a coach observer in Wharton’s Executive Development Program and designs executive level educational programs for multiple clients.  Jenna’s clients have include those in the aerospace, financial services, telecom, manufacturing, technology, consumer goods, retail (B2B and B2C), advertising, higher educational institutes.

Jenna is a graduate of Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara Coaching Program (ICF certified), a certified Action Learning Coach with the World Institute of Action Learning and a certified health and wellness coach. She is worked with numerous psychometrics including Korn Ferry’s 360, Hogan, Birkman and DISC. Her Master’s Degree in Adult Learning and Instructional Design is from the Philadelphia University and she holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in International Relations from Lynchburg College.

In addition to her coaching and consulting work, she is currently the Director of Operations and Development for Leadership for a Networked World an applied research and advisory program at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. In this capacity she has conducted research and developed programs focused on cross-boundary collaborations and new public-private partnerships, working with state chief administrators, chief procurement officials, state chief information officers, and other c-suite government leaders and their private sector partners.

Lauren is also a Lecturer and Consultant at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, to teaching an undergraduate course on management, leadership, and communication, several times a year she consults at Wharton’s Executive Education Program and coaches senior executives from global organizations to hone their leadership skills.

Previously, Lauren served as the Director of Consulting at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government. Prior to that, she spent six years engaged in workforce development issues for the city of Philadelphia, and worked on a presidential campaign and for several nonprofits.

Lauren has been identified as one of Philadelphia’s Emerging Connectors by Leadership Philadelphia. She received her B.A. from Harvard College in Psychology with a minor in French, and her Master’s Degree in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania with certificates in Leadership and Management, Global Studies, Practitioner of Change, and Sustainable Development. Outside of the office, Lauren serves as the Secretary for the Harvard Club of Philadelphia and plays on touch-football, basketball and softball teams.

Contact: hirshon@post.harvard.edu and 617-218-7060