Founder & Practice Lead

Bob's path to org design ran through Zen training in Japan, a decade in newspaper design, and two decades at firms like The Ready and Rally Software.

The throughline: how people and systems actually work, and what makes change real.

He's the author of Radical Alignment and Agile Business, and writes weekly at splendidtorch.substack.com.

He founded Splendid Torch in 2025 because most AI adoption work treats organizations as if they're machines waiting for an upgrade. They're not.

Operations Lead

Hannah spent eight years at Nitro, from startup to IPO. Beginning as a sales coordinator in Dublin and ending as Director of Business Operations and Strategy in San Francisco. She then joined Ignite as COO, embedding AI into the agency's operations .

Now she runs Hannah Keen AI Consulting, helping smaller organizations turn AI from theory into practical enablement.

Her view: clarity is a company's greatest competitive advantage, and most AI strategies fail because the operating system underneath isn't ready.

Strategy Lead

Joe designed and led the world's largest four-day workweek pilots.

He now advises leaders on how to redesign work for the AI age — moving beyond efficiency gains to build organizations that elevate human effectiveness and capture AI's full strategic potential.

He’s the CEO of Work Time Revolution, co-author of Do More in Four (HBR Press), a former research scholar at Cornell, and a keynote speaker on human-centered AI.

At Splendid Torch, his focus is the people and culture work adaptation requires — crafting a human story, creating capacity, aligning incentives, and rewarding value over volume.

Science Lead

Julie's thesis is that most organizations operate at about 60% of their potential, and the gap isn't talent — it's the friction between people, teams, and systems.

She has spent her career proving it, including eight years as Head of Global People Development at CHANEL, four at Two Sigma Investments, and five at Google in learning and organizational development.

She holds a PhD in Psychology from Auburn University and is the author of The Work Revolution: Freedom and Excellence for All. She lives in London and writes at julieclow.substack.com.

Education Lead

Usha believes that AI adoption fails at the organizational layer.

She has spent 15 years as an executive coach and organizational strategist working with C-suite leaders across financial services, technology, consumer goods, philanthropy, and the public sector.

Her clients include PepsiCo, Intel, the Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

She hosts Optimized for Humans, a podcast where leaders talk about what's actually happening with AI inside their organizations.

An organizational diagnostician, Erin’s focus is on culture as operational infrastructure.

Maaria runs structured implementation sprints that turn scattered pilots into operational systems.

With experience in neurobiology, culture, and organizational epigenetics Rajkumari has trained leaders at Google, Adobe, and Slack.

A socio-technologist with experience in aerospace, healthcare, and energy. Tiani helps organizations reimagine delivery models.

Former Senior Advisor at SYPartners. Bree has partnered with companies like Google, Microsoft, and Pfizer on large-scale transformation. She is the author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously).

President and co-founder of Chrysalis, a privacy-first AI identity infrastructure. Brittany is a former COO who thinks in systems — where governance, consent, and organizational design have to work together.

Techstars and IDEO alum, founder of PartnerWork Innovations, and Adjunct Professor of AI, Caralanay helps companies move AI from concept to working product.

Founder of the Learning Design Alliance, a nonprofit bringing human-centered AI to learning design. David is the former VP of Learning and Innovation at General Assembly and Fulbright Fellow.

The author of Free Time and Pivot, Jenny co-created Google's Career Guru program. She helps leaders and organizations redesign systems so people can do their best work.

Former CEO of General Assembly, Lisa is a board director and early-stage investor, she brings rare depth on how organizations build capability at scale.

Founder of the Big Table Institute Patty has spent her career spanning entrepreneurship development and economic policy, she helps mission-driven organizations design for sustainable impact.

Co-founder and CEO of Chipp, a platform that creates private, secure AI tools based on your knowledge and files. Scott sees AI adoption as a practical enablement problem.

Former Chief People Officer of Guidewire Software, Sinéad is an advocate for human superpowers amplified with technology, tools and processes that work.