Don honed his insights into effective leadership with over 20 years of executive experience -- in four time zones, from California to New York City (in Fortune-500s, high-tech start-ups and not-for-profits).

Don received his formal training in executive coaching at Georgetown University, completing its renowned graduate certificate program for Leadership Coaching. Don holds a Masters Degree in Human and Organizational Systems. He is completing his Ph.D. in Human Development at Fielding Graduate University, where he is extending the theories of Abraham H. Maslow and George A. Kelly. Don also has studied Developmental Coaching at the InterDevelopMental Institute. He was credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF) in 2008, and served as an officer of its Greater Richmond, Virginia Chapter.

Don is the author of six well-regarded management books distributed around the world with translations into Chinese, Hebrew, Portuguese, and German. He's been an award-winning leadership columnist for CNET Networks, and has published more than 200 articles in leading publications on leadership and change management. He is a subject matter expert for the American Management Association on managerial coaching, managerial trust and formal mentoring. Don developed several management courses for the AMA and served on its faculty.

Don was selected as one of the top 150 world-renowned business thought leaders (joining Charles Handy, Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Jim Collins) by the publishers of the globally popular and widely praised book, BUSINESS: The Ultimate Resource. Don's chapter was on Best Practices in Leadership Development. His thinking on evidence-based management was recently published (2011, with colleague Dr. Ruth Zaplin) in an international scholarly work for public sector executives.

A frequent presenter at management conferences, Don has been quoted on management issues by the major news media including USA Today, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, Across the Board magazine, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, ABC Radio, Associated Press, UPI, Reuters magazine, National Productivity Review, Entrepreneur, Business Marketing, Incentive magazine, and countless professional and trade journals worldwide.

Don founded the Lead Well Institute in 1995 to help executive teams and individuals to improve their performance. He has been privileged to provide leadership development, management training, and executive coaching to such top organizations as:

Johnson & Johnson
U.S. Marines Corps
Sisters of Charity
Publishers Clearing House
Honda America
Genworth Financial
New Jersey Judiciary; Delaware Division of Finance; various other state, Federal, regional and local agencies
FedEx
Wal-Mart
Motorola
American Society of Association Executives
Meeting Professionals International
numerous national professional and trade associations