LF Leadership

Jimmie R. Alford, CFRE, is Founder and Chair of The Alford Group, a national consulting firm to the nonprofit sector that has assisted more than 1,000 clients nationwide over its 25-year history. Throughout his 40-year career in the nonprofit sector, Jimmie has provided leadership in improving the quality of life, assisting hundreds of clients in all aspects of not-for-profit management. Prior to founding The Alford Group, Jimmie was a senior executive with the Boys and Girls Club of Metropolitan Chicago.

Recognized twice by The NonProfit Times as "one of the 50 most influential people in the nonprofit sector," Jimmie plays an active leadership and stewardship role in the not-for-profit sector. He is past Chair of the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (now the Giving USA Foundation) and has served on the boards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Foundation and the Fund Raising School of Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.

He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of North Park University and the Advisory Board of North Park University’s Axelson Center for Nonprofit Management where he serves as Executive in Residence and teaches graduate courses in nonprofit management. He also Chairs the board of Families International, and serves on a number of boards including: Alice Lloyd College, the Barat Education Foundation, El Valor, and the Business Advisory Council of Trinity International University.

Jimmie frequently writes and lectures on issues affecting the nonprofit sector. He served as editor and chapter author for the book, Building and Managing an Asset Base, published under the auspices of Indiana University Center on Philanthropy's New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising program.

Jimmie has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from North Park University and a Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Aurora University. He also holds a Master of Science Degree in Administration and Organizational Behavior and is a Certified Fund Raising Executive.

John Cooper is a leadership and organization effectiveness consultant focusing in the areas of leadership development, organization change and design, strategic planning, team effectiveness, and productivity improvement. He brings a results-driven practical approach that is grounded with both extensive experience in line management and consulting. Prior to starting his consulting business in 1997, John spent 17 years in the Property & Casualty Insurance Industry holding management positions in underwriting, training, and internal consulting.

John has worked with over one hundred leaders in a variety of industries to improve performance and develop them for future responsibilities. He is skilled in a number of leadership development tools including CCL Benchmarks, Skillscope, DiSC, Hay Group Climate Improvement and Leadership Styles Inventory, and Voice Dialogue, and is a graduate of the International Gestalt Coaching Program.

In a variety of settings, he has facilitated major change initiatives including organization restructuring, mergers, and work process improvement, John has lead large scale organizational change efforts, process improvement initiatives, and restructuring efforts in a variety of companies.

John has worked with dozens of teams to improve performance, team effectiveness, culture, and organizational alignment. He has worked with teams to improve processes, structure, goal alignment, and interpersonal conflict.

Some of John’s Clients include: BP, Alcan Packaging , Sears, Motorola, RR Donnelley, Eli Lilly, Yaskawa Electric America, Montgomery Watson Harza, Pep Boys, Chicago School District, Information Resources Inc., mWired, SBC/Ameritech, and Northwest Community Hospital.

John is the past President of the Organization Development Network of Chicago, and has served on the Board of Directors of the Human Resources Management Association of Chicago. He is certified in Center for Creative Leadership’s Benchmarks 360º executive development instrument and Hay Group Climate Improvement and Leadership Styles instrument, and is a graduate of the International Gestalt Coaching Program. John received his Masters Degree in Organization Development from Aurora University (George Williams College) in 1991 and serves as adjunct faculty at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Janice Muñiz is the founder of Evolutiva, the leading executive coaching firm in Mexico and a partner firm of LF Leadership. Her clients have included presidents and CEOs of multinational corporations, Latin American and Mexican firms. She has coached in a range of industries that include advertising, manufacturing, tele-communications, retail, technology, distribution and education. She has worked with companies experiencing tremendous growth, undergoing financial hardships, and still others going through soft mergers.

Janice headed multinational advertising firms in Latin America for more than a decade. Here, she enjoyed assignments that challenged her with turning around companies that were in financial and operational hardships. Janice served as President and General Manager of Wunderman Mexico, a Young and Rubicam-WPP company and in 2001 was selected as one of the firm's top 20 rising stars world-wide. This experience, coupled with leadership positions at Saatchi & Saatchi and J Walter Thompson, provide her with a unique understanding of the corporate and individual pressures executives face on a daily basis.

Janice is an active member of New Ventures West faculty and its leadership team. She is also the co-founder of the Enneagram Institute Ciudad de México.

Janice is fluent in both Spanish and English and has lived in Mexico for over eight years. She has a BA in Communications from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico. She is an integral coaching graduate of New Ventures West and holds the PCC ICF Certification. Janice has participated in leadership development seminars with Tom Peters Company, the Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence and the Strozzi Institute . She is currently pursuing certification with the Enneagram Institute and specializes in the use of the Enneagram in the workplace.

Since early in her life, Janice has been fascinated with leadership and its impact in individuals, teams and communities. In addition to it, she is an avid reader, practices yoga and enjoys travel, photography, and trekking. She is married and lives with her husband Christian in Mexico City.

Beth Roy, PhD, is a long-time mediator in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of the founders of the Radical Psychiatry movement.

She writes books on social conflict, including Some Trouble with Cows: Making Sense of Social Conflict (an oral history of Hindu-Muslim clashes in South Asia), and Bitters in the Honey: Tales of Hope and Disappointment Across Divides of Race and Time (an exploration of race relations today based on stories by ordinary people involved in the desegregation of schools in Little Rock in the 1950s). Parents’ Lives, Children’s Needs: Working Together for the Well-Being of Everyone is a practical guide to parenting in contexts of race and culture, with an eye toward social change.

Dr. Roy's most recent publication, 41 Shots...and Counting: What Amadou Diallo Teaches Us About Policing, Race, and Justice (released in 2009) focuses initially on the circumstances surrounding the killing of Diallo, then widens its lens to encompass dynamics of policing, policy and politics. It explores how the shooting of Diallo tells a larger story about race in America, entangled with hard issues of criminal justice and political injustice.

She is a founder of the Practitioners Research and Scholarship Institute (PRASI), a group of academic and grassroots peacemakers exploring issues of conflict and power. With PRASI Dr. Roy is co-editor of an anthology about race and peacemaking, Re-Centering Culture and Knowledge in Conflict Resolution Practice, published in 2008. She also teaches in the Peace and Conflict Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley.