LEI's Learning Portal

Charles F. Murphy

Senior Vice President, New York Business Unit, Turner Construction Company

Pastry Chef/Co-Owner 
Flour Bakery 

Tammy M. Wilkins

Former Chief of Staff, National Minority Supplier Development

With more than 30 years of experience enabling technology and improving complex upstream and downstream processes, Tammy has brought operational efficiencies and/or business transformation that yielded positive results for Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations. Her career advanced from being a software engineer to functioning in an executive capacity with responsibilities involving planning and execution; oversight of several complex and cross-functional strategic initiatives involving core business functions such as HR, IT, Marketing and Communications, Legal, Accounting and Finance, and Procurement; and large-scale conference planning and execution, with a keen focus on people, process, technology, and data. Her employers included Ashland Oil, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, American Express, The National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and contractual assignments in the Health Care industry.

As the former Chief of Staff and VP of Operations at NMSDC, she focused on several areas of operational improvements and strategic alliances to advance the organization’s mission and brand. Her employment with Toyota Motor Manufacturing, NA, is where she developed the skillset, experience, and value of lean thinking and applying the Toyota Production System principles to bring about operational efficiencies. She has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Winston-Salem State University (HBCU) and an MBA in Global Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Before joining GBMP, a Boston-based non-profit founded in 1994 that provides lean and six sigma assistance to manufacturing, healthcare, and service organizations, Bruce spent thirty years in manufacturing, leading his factory to a Shingo Prize in 1990. From 1996 to 1998, his factory was also a project site for the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC.)

Bruce is the author of and actor in the 2004 Shingo Prize-winning video Toast Kaizen and coauthor of the comprehensive multimedia training package, e2 Continuous Improvement System. The package combines GBMP’s acclaimed educational videos with self-study workbooks, classroom learning, and workplace practice. He also coauthored the Shingo Institute's authoritative analysis of the Shingo Model's Dimension 2, Continuous Improvement. In 2000, he was inducted into the Shingo Prize Academy, and in 2015 was inducted into the AME Manufacturing Hall of Fame.

GBMP is an affiliate of the Shingo Institute and provides an annual Northeast L.E.A.N. Conference, http://www.northeastleanconference.org.

As president and CEO of this high-mix/low-volume contract furniture manufacturer, Geoff developed a strategy deployment system modeled after Toyota’s Hoshin Planning Model with the company’s leadership team, helping catalyze a cultural shift toward pro-active management. He also led a multi-disciplinary team to reduce the company’s manufacturing footprint by over 25% while increasing capacity by over 75% using a “Systematic Layout Planning” (SLP) procedure that incorporated value-stream mapping. During his tenure, Geoff and the senior management team, which he restructured, recruited, mentored, and developed, significantly improved returns year-over-year while growing sales by over 10% from 2011 to 2021. Before being named president and CEO, he held various engineering and manufacturing leadership positions with the company. 

Geoff earned a Master of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan (U-M), a Master of Science in Engineering from Grand Valley State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Resources Ecology and Management from U-M.

Cheri Nourse

Vice President of Sales, Grand Rapids Chair Company

Cheri is responsible for leading Grand Rapids Chair sales teams in the United States, Canada, & Mexico. Her success has been driven by building genuine connections with people at all levels. She motivates her sales teams to achieve consistently higher levels of success while creating relationships of trust and confidence with clients.  

A seasoned professional with over 30 years of successful sales leadership experience in new business development and competitive market expansion, Cheri is recognized for leading sales teams to achieve multimillion-dollar revenue gains.  

In her previous role as vice president of sales for the Northern U.S. for the hospitality division of Tarkett North America, an industrial manufacturer of commercial flooring products, Cheri was responsible for growing sales in 29 states through Architecture and Design Firms, Distribution Groups, and B2B sales. Before that, she was vice president of sales for the North Central Region for the commercial division of Mohawk Industries, a fortune 500 flooring manufacturer. 

Cheri holds a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from the University of Wisconsin Stout. She is based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Sarah Day Kalloch

Executive Director, Good Jobs Institute

Sarah has dedicated her career to connecting public and private sector leaders with frontline workers to build better businesses, create good jobs, and define stronger social policy. She serves as the executive director of the Good Jobs Institute, which inspires industry leaders to redefine what it means to run a successful business and help their companies thrive by creating good jobs. In this role, she builds partnerships with companies that are dedicated to transforming their organizations by embracing the Good Jobs Strategy and co-creates tools and resources that guide the transformation process.

Sarah previously spent over a decade in international development, improving the health, human rights, and financial independence of communities across Africa. At Oxfam, she spearheaded global partnerships that encouraged leading food and beverage companies to adopt more sustainable sourcing policies. As an executive at Physicians for Human Rights, she co-founded two health and human rights organizations in Uganda and Kenya and secured billions in HIV/AIDS and global health funding. Sarah graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and earned a Master of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Valeriia Zabolotna

Rector of Academy DTEK, Ukraine

John Shook learned about lean management while working for Toyota for 11 years in Japan and the U.S., helping it transfer production, engineering, and management systems from Japan to NUMMI and other operations around the world. While at Toyota’s headquarters, he became the company’s first American kacho (manager) in Japan. In the U.S., Shook joined Toyota’s North American engineering, research and development center in Ann Arbor, Michigan as general manager of administration and planning. His last position with Toyota was as senior American manager with the Toyota Supplier Support Center in Lexington, Kentucky, assisting North American companies adopt the Toyota Production System. Shook co-authored Learning to See, the book that introduced the world to value-stream mapping. He also co-authored Kaizen Express, a bi-lingual manual of the essential concepts and tools of the Toyota Production System. With Managing to Learn, Shook revealed the deeper workings of the A3 management process that is at the heart of Toyota’s management and leadership.

Shook is an industrial anthropologist with a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee, and is a graduate of the Japan-America Institute of Management Science. At the University of Michigan, he was director of the Japan Technological Management Program and faculty member of the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering.

Shook is the author of numerous articles, including “How to Change a Culture: Lessons from NUMMI”; Sloan Management Review, January 2010, which won Sloan’s Richard Beckhard Memorial Prize for outstanding article in the field of organizational development.