Home | Leadership Labs

DESIGN THINKING | LEADERSHIP | WELLBEING

About

Hi, I'm John!

I lead design thinking, leadership, and professional development programs for teams and organizations worldwide, and founded Leadership Labs, a consultancy specializing in workplace learning, leadership, and collaboration.

Prior to founding Leadership Labs, I most recently spent 6 years teaching in Stanford University’s Design Program, including Stanford's famous Designing Your Life class and other courses that take an innovative approach to applied positive psychology, decision analysis, and career strategy.

I am also a meditation guide on the Calm app, the top app for meditation and mental wellness, where I have led workshops for Calm’s business clients and had the good fortune of blending my personal interest in mindfulness with my professional work in learning design.

I'm passionate about creating meaningful learning experiences and working with groups to create more connected, engaged, and productive cultures.

All in all this workshop may be the #1 employer sponsored event I've attended in my career. Great work, and I really appreciate John as facilitator. Very effective.

- Offsite Participant

recent clients

(hover cursor for details)

Closing keynote speaker for Bill’s Unity Design Summit, bringing Bill’s global design team together in-person for the first time following 2 acquisitions and nearly 3 years of remote work.

Offsite facilitation for Slack’s Future Forum, a consortium pioneering the future of work through convening Fortune 500 executives and conducting research on 10,000+ knowledge workers.

Human-Centered Design Program for Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Lahore Chapter on design thinking for entrepreneurship. Partnered with local practitioners to tailor content to cultural and business context.

Traveling Resource Program for the global leadership community of YPO, delivering a workshop series for CEO’s in chapters across the Middle East and North Africa

YouTube Partner Operations Team Day facilitator, a hybrid learning experience on the theme of Purpose, bringing together groups of employees across 4 different offices.

Keynote speaker at Global HR Day, sharing mindfulness and stress-management techniques through the lens of DHL’s internal feedback frameworks and evolving post-pandemic EVP.

Teaching Stanford's famous 'Designing Your Life" class and several related courses that draw on positive psychology, decision analysis, and career strategy.

Worked with Emmy Award-winning producers from the Ellen DeGeneres Show and Oprah Winfrey Network to film a set of live workshops on mindfulness, focus, and burnout for Calm's business clients.

Human-centered design for Pinterest's Leadership & Culture team. Designed and facilitated hands-on, collaborative activities with a focus on rapid prototyping of new L&C offerings.

Strategy and ideation workshop for senior Spotify executives in the Content and Ads BU focused on emerging challenges/opportunities in synthetic media, the metaverse(s), and AI.