Quarterly Forum (QF) and The Leaders Initiative (TLI) announce the launch of the inaugural Colorado Governors Fellowship Program on June 29, 2016. TLI and its flagship Fellowship Program were inspired by Dr. Geoff Smart’s book, Leadocracy, and founded on the premise that government is only as good as who is in it. Through the bipartisan support of Governors Hickenlooper, Owens and Ritter, the Fellowship Program will engage private and nonprofit sector leaders in the future of public service and the advancement of our state.
The Fellowship Program will prepare Fellows to contribute to solving the state’s most challenging issues while leading opportunities for growth and innovation. The Fellowship is an 8-month public policy program executed in partnership with the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs and the Governor's Office, and supported by the Colorado Business Roundtable. Fellows experience a three-fold curriculum of education, exposure and experience through monthly sessions at The Commons on Champa, lunches with the Governor, shadow sessions with state officials and dynamic conversations with renowned speakers. The Program culminates with the Civic Intensathon, modeled after tech sector hackathons, whereby Fellows will apply their newfound knowledge to a real-time policy challenge and present their findings to the Governor and his senior administrative team.
Fellows will graduate from the Governors Fellowship Program with new knowledge, relationships within the public sector and an alumni network of highly influential civic leaders who can make tangible impacts on the future of our state as highly-engaged executives, future senior-level government leaders or Governor-appointed committee members.
FELLOWS
This year’s Colorado Governors Fellows are an impressive group of private and nonprofit sector leaders who represent a diverse array of industries from across the state. Each Fellow has demonstrated leadership in their field, is actively engaged in their community and holds strong peer commendations. These are leaders who can contribute to public leadership with dynamism, innovation and experience complimentary to traditional government leaders. Announcing the 2016-2017 Colorado Governors Fellows:
Heidi Baskfield
Executive Director of Advocacy, Children’s Hospital Colorado
Brad Begin
CEO, Alpen High Performance Products
Dr. Ken Bellian
Chief of Clinical Operations, Denver Health Medical Center
Kirsten Benefiel
VP of Client Engagement, ViaWest
Amy Blair
Senior VP & Chief Human Resources Officer, Liberty Global
Kevin Brinkman
Co-founder and President, Brinkman Partners
Luis Duarte
Investments Director, Gary Community Investments
Erik Estrada
General Counsel, Level 3 Foundation, Inc.
Senior Corporate Counsel, Level 3 Communications, Inc.
Chris Franz
CEO/Founder, Franz Ventures Motive Power
Mike Hartman
Senior VP Corporate Banking, Mutual of Omaha Bank
Jim Hearty
Chief Compliance Officer, DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc.
Tom Henley
Area Manager of Community and Local Government Affairs for Public Service Company of Colorado, Xcel Energy Company
Brad Holly
Senior Vice President, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
Kathy Lockhart
Vice President & Controller, Noodles & Company
Karl Maier
President of Zayo International, Zayo Group
Sam Meyer
Vice President, Shaw Construction
Luisa Molano
Director of Recruiting, Arrow Electronics, Inc.
Lindsay J. Ritter
Global Practice Lead, Asset & Operations Management, Transportation Business Group, CH2M
Min Sohn
Founder, Arrowpoint Partners
John B. Stephens
Managing Director, Vestar Capital Partners
Kristin Todd
Senior VP, Daniels Fund
Sruta Vootukuru
VP of Operations, SlingTV
Paul Zeckser
VP of Product, HomeAdvisor
HISTORY
Established in 2011, The Leaders Initiative (TLI) is a nonprofit professional association whose original mission was to elevate humanity by identifying, developing and deploying society's greatest leaders into government. Since TLI’s inception, private sector leaders have worked with state government to curate a pool of talented potential cabinet leaders and institutionalize the connection between state government leaders and the business community.
TLI works at the intersection of the public, private and nonprofit communities to engage leaders in applying their skills across sectors. Inspired by Dr. Geoff Smart’s book, Leadocracy, TLI was formed to execute programs on the premise that government is only as good as who is in it.
In 2015, TLI merged with QF to scale the organization and focus more heavily on long-term talent development within the government sector. As part of this transition, Colorado governors Hickenlooper, Owens and Ritter advised Quarterly Forum to strengthen program design and sharpen its non-partisan mission and programmatic focus.
The cornerstone of the TLI program is the Colorado Governors Fellowship Program, an 8-month program that engages business and nonprofit leaders into Colorado public policy while elevating the opportunity to make an impact by serving in government.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Meegan Moszynski, Executive Director, The Leaders Initiative
[email protected] or 307-699-1997