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Who We Are

Our Team

Thiagi

Our Associates

Russ Powell

Ellen Gehrke

Our International Partners

South Africa

Switzerland

[Thiagi's photo] Dr. Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan is the Resident Mad Scientist at The Thiagi Group, an organization with the mission of helping people improve their performance effectively and enjoyably.

Thiagi's long-term clients include AT&T, Arthur Andersen, Bank of Montreal, Cadence Design Systems, Chevron, IBM, Intel, Intelsat, United Airlines, and Liberty Mutual. On a short-term basis, Thiagi has worked with more than 50 different organizations in high-tech, financial services, and management consulting areas. For these clients, Thiagi has consulted and conducted training in such areas as rightsizing, diversity, creativity, teamwork, customer satisfaction, human performance technology, and organizational learning.

Thiagi has published 40 books, 120 games and simulations, and more than 200 articles. He wrote the definitive chapters on simulations and games for ISPI's Handbook of Human Performance Technology, ASTD's Training & Development Handbook, and the American Management Association's Human Resources Management and Development Handbook.

Thiagi currently writes a monthly online newsletter, Thiagi GameLetter. This newsletter, now in its fifth year, features Thiagi's training games and other creative interventions that deliver results quickly and effectively. He served as the editor of NSPI Journal and Performance & Improvement for more than 10 years. He currently edits the simulation/game section in Sage Publication's journal, Simulation & Gaming. He is also a contributing editor of the monthly journal, Educational Technology.

Thiagi has made hundreds of presentations and keynote speeches at professional conferences. At ISPI, Thiagi holds the "records" for making the most presentations, conducting the most preconference workshops, and being invited to make the most Encore presentations. Thiagi is also a regular presenter at Lakewood's TRAINING Conferences and the annual conferences of American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA).

Thiagi has been the president of the North American Simulation and Gaming Associating (NASAGA), International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), and Association for Special Education Technology (ASET). He has received 17 different awards and Presidential Citations from ISPI, including the society's highest award, Honorary Life Member. He also received an Honorary Life Member award from NASAGA as well as its highest award, Ifill-Raynolds Award.

Internationally recognized as an expert in multinational collaboration and active learning in organizations, Thiagi has lived in three different countries and has consulted in 21 others.

[Matthew's photo] Matthew Richter is the President for The Thiagi Group. He is a facilitator, game designer, instructional designer, and management consultant. Matthew has consulted with organizations that include Redwood Trust, CenturyLink, EA, Microsoft, Carolina Power and Light, IGT, Cadence Design Systems, and Sony. He is an expert in the areas of management, leadership, and performance technology. He specializes in employee motivation. Matthew mixes corporate, not-for-profit, academic, and independent experience, enabling him to adapt and best serve his clients.

Matthew is the co-creator (with Scott Rigby of Immersyve, Inc. and Richard M. Ryan of the University of Rochester) of MAPS (Motivation, Assessment, and Performance System), an innovative performance management system that breaks all of the traditional paradoxes of management.

He is a sought-after public speaker and has delivered keynotes and conference presentations for such organizations as the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Training Magazine, the International Alliance for Learning (IAL), North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA), Influent, and the National Society for Black Engineers. He was the 2006 ISPI National Conference Chair, and was an encore presenter for five years for his presentation Creating a Motivating Environment.

Matthew is a featured author in the 2001, 2002, and 2003 Training and Performance and/or Team and Organization Development Sourcebook, published by McGraw-Hill. His articles on learner motivation were published in Pfeiffer's 2008 book The Trainers' Portable Mentor. He has also written several articles on leadership, motivation, instructional design, storytelling, and organizational development.

Article: How Learners Are Motivated (975K PDF; requires Adobe Acrobat. To be published in Trainers' Portable Mentor.)
Article: How to Create a Leadership Vision Driven by Intrinsic Motivation (417K PDF; requires Adobe Acrobat. Reprinted from The 2003 Training and Performance Sourcebook. Published by ASTD.)
Interview with Matt Richter by Les Lauber

[Raja's photo] Raja Thiagarajan is the Resident Computer Whiz at The Thiagi Group. He has developed and designed many of our computer game shells and software such as Zingo, PuzzleMaker, and the Thiagi Timers. His technical expertise and innovative mind have added immense value to such clients as Agilent, Cadence Design Systems, and Pfizer. He is an expert game designer and facilitator who has co-delivered programs all over the world for such organizations as ASTD, ISPI, and NASAGA. Raja has also served on the Board of Directors for NASAGA.

Raja is a frequent contributing author. Not only has he co-authored a myriad of books with his father, Thiagi, but he has also co-written dozens of articles for books, periodicals, and magazines. His work has been seen in the likes of Performance Intervention Maps, a collection of articles co-published by ISPI and ASTD, and the Training Sourcebook, edited by Mel Silberman and published by ASTD.

Raja is an amateur astrophysicist and a minor expert in science fiction.

[Brian's photo] Brian Remer is a designer of interactive strategies for training, facilitation, and performance improvement. With a B.A. in psychology and an M.A. in Intercultural Management, he has worked with businesses and organizations in Egypt, Ecuador, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and throughout the United States.

He blends information, discussion, games, and participant input to insure involvement and commitment from everyone. His special interests include leadership development, organizational mission and vision, teambuilding, and training of other trainers in the use of games and simulations. Through the practical application of experiential education techniques, he creates a learning environment that blends action, reflection, and theory. As a result, participants gain a commitment to continuous learning and leave each session with their own action plan for future growth.

Brian is a member and regular presenter at conferences of the International Society for Performance Improvement, Training Magazine, and the North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA). He has served on the Board of Directors and as chair and president of NASAGA, and was the 2011 recipient of NASAGA's Ifill-Raynolds Award for lifetime achievement. Brian is the author of Say It Quick! 99-Word Stories About Leadership, Learning, and Life. He is noted for his ability to create a low pressure, high impact learning environment.

[Tracy's photo] Tracy Tagliati, CPLP knows how to engage the learner. As the chief learning officer at the Thiagi Group, she works directly with key executives and managers to conduct performance analyses and develop customized programs using a rapid instructional design approach. Her specialty is activities-based training in both instructor-led and web-based environments. She has co-authored two books with Thiagi on topics relating to interactive learning techniques and has presented at numerous international conferences. Her mission is helping people improve their performance effectively and enjoyably. She is active in ASTD, ISPI and the North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA).

Tracy has a bachelor's degree in business education and is completing her master's degree from Capella University, majoring in training and performance improvement.

[Regina's photo] Regina Rowland, the Meister-Doodler and Sustainability Expert at the Thiagi Group, is a bi-lingual, bi-national global nomad, located in Vienna, Austria, and in Savannah, Georgia. She identifies as a transdisciplinary scholar-practitioner and serves on the faculty of multiple universities in Europe and the US. She currently teaches in the Master Program for Design Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Regina received her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. She has also earned a graduate certificate in Sustainable Enterprises from the Willamette University Atkinson Graduate School of Management in Portland, Oregon, completed post-doctoral research at the Grenoble Ecole de Management in France, and is a Biomimicry Specialist certified by the Biomimicry 3.8. Institute in Missoula, Montana. She works in the nexus of business, engineering, and design.

[John's photo] John Stowell began his successful career in the early 1970's with private study with guitarist Linc Chamberland and pianist John Mehegan. Both men were valuable mentors to John, allowing him to play with them as he progressed in his development. Several years later he met bassist David Friesen in New York City, and they formed a duo that recorded and toured prolifically for seven years, with performances in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. The duo continues to perform thirty years after their first meeting.

John continues to tour, record and teach internationally. He has been Artist-In-Residence at schools in Germany, Indonesia, Argentina, and in the United States and Canada. He served as assistant director and performer in Oregon Public Broadcasting's PDX Jazz Summit in 1991, and since 1995 has been a contributing columnist for a number of magazines, including Downbeat, Guitar Player, Canadian Musician, Soundcheck (Germany), and Guitar Club (Italy).

John has appearanced on BET Jazz Discovery and Guitar Series television shows and has recording/performance credits with Milt Jackson, Lionel Hampton, Art Farmer, Conte Condoli, Herb Ellis, Bill Watrous, Mundell Lowe, George Cables, Billy Higgins, Billy Hart, Richie Cole, Paul Horn, Tom Harrrell, Don Thompson, Dave Liebman, and many others.

[Tom's photo] Thomas F. Pray, Ph.D. recently joined The Thiagi Group as a business consultant and facilitator of his Web-DECIDE Simulation. Tom was a professor of Decision Sciences at the Saunder's College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology and the past chairman of the Department of Decision Sciences and MIS. He also ran the Executive MBA program for many years before retiring.

Tom is the co-developer and primary facilitator for the award-winning business simulation, Web-DECIDE. Web-DECIDE teaches participants cross-functional decision making as they virtually manage their own company for a simulated period of two years. The program covers such areas as strategic planning, finance, quality, managing operations, and leadership. It puts over 25 different managerial variables into practical, transferable context so learners can really draw connections back to their day jobs. He has delivered Web-DECIDE a myriad of times, worldwide, to such clients as: Xerox Corporation, Eastman Kodak, CIGNA, Harris Corporation, Cadence Design Systems, PAXAR, Taconic Farms, Redwood Trust, CenturyTel, and Constellation Brands.

Tom has a master's degree in industrial management, and he earned his doctorate in managerial economics.

[Sam's photo] Sam (Samuel van den Bergh) has been the Swiss associate of the Thiagi Group since 1998.

Sam is the founder of the Centre for Cross-cultural Competence at the School of Communication at Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland. He is also the founder of his own training and consulting company, van den Bergh Thiagi Associates GmbH, which specializes in cross-cultural communication, leadership, management, and teambuilding.

Sam studied English and German linguistics at the Universities of Zurich and at Berkeley (California). Since 2000, he has been training managers from multinational corporations and the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs and participants from Executive MBA programs on leadership, management, and cross-cultural competencies. He also offers consulting and executive coaching services related to leadership and intercultural issues.

Our Associates

[Russ's photo] Russ Powell (www.russpowell.com) is a 20-year learning-industry veteran who helps mid-sized and large businesses create effective and affordable professional training programs that help bring their employees to the next level. His programs help business leaders reduce high rates of turnover, decrease warranty costs, maintain quality and profitability during rapid growth, increase employee productivity and expand markets.

Russ' specialties include performance-based instructional design, eLearning project management, facilitation of face-to-face and online training programs, design and development of instructional videos and podcasts, sales training, and the evaluation of eLearning programs.

Over the course of his career, Russ has worked with Sun Microsystems, the United States Coast Guard, Pixar, AT&T, and NASA Space Flight Center, and served on the faculty of Georgia State University and the American Management Association. He's received numerous outstanding achievement awards for his workforce learning programs. Russ holds degrees in the behavioral sciences from Georgia State University and Loyola University. He is also an avid juggler and continues to perform regularly.

[Ellen's photo] Ellen Kaye Gehrke, in addition to being an Associate of The Thiagi Group, is a professor of Community Health in the School of Health and Human Services at National University in San Diego. She also is the lead faculty for the Master's Program in Integrative Health. Dr. Kaye Gehrke has a PhD in Organizational Behavior and Strategy from George Washington University, an MBA in Marketing from National University and a BSc. in Natural Resource Management from the University of California Berkeley. She is currently pursuing a post-doc in Transformational Psychology and Integrative Health at Holos University Graduate Seminary. Ellen has been in the field of management education and leadership for over 25 years. She lived and worked in Europe for more than eight years teaching and consulting to eastern European countries helping to resolve the social and economic challenges that resulted from massive privatization and the transition from centrally planned to market driven economies. She spent several years on the staff at the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd) in Belgium as Director of European Business Schools and Research. More recently, Dr. Kaye has been studying energy and energy medicine. She is in the midst of a research endeavor on the energetics of the human-animal bond- measuring the relationship between heart rate variability between horses and humans. She is trained at level 3 Healing Touch, Level 1 Healing Touch for Animals, a merit graduate of Adventures in Awareness linking equine facilitated learning. She lives in Ramona, California with her horses, dog, cats and husband, Carsten. She and her horses have conducted a skills for relationship centered care programs with UCSD medical school students, also leads a grief adaptation for San Diego Hospice grief camp for kids and conducts leadership, personal development and coaching programs in partnership with her horses.

Our International Associates

These partners sponsor workshops by Thiagi in their countries. They also act as exclusive distributor of the Thiagi Group products and services.

South Africa

Gateways Business Consultants has been offering strategic business and human resources assistance to businesses in Africa and the Middle East since 1990. Gateways are keen proponents of the use of interactive training games and exercises in learning initiatives as they know first-hand how these techniques really engage programme participants in the learning process.

Gateways Business Consultants website

Switzerland

van den Bergh Thiagi Associates GmbH, Neftenbach, Switzerland

An increasingly interdependent and complex world requires increasingly sophisticated minds.

This organization does training, consulting, coaching, and research in the fields of cross-cultural competence development, cross-cultural management and leadership, diversity and inclusion, change and transition processes, human performance technology, multicultural team and trust building. They do it differently.