From our founders:
Ryan Stelzer, Co-founder
David Brendel, Co-founder
We did something crazy: we left comfortable jobs in the management consulting and medical fields to change the way the world works. Overly ambitious? Possibly, but we had to give it a shot. We share over 30 years of combined experience at places like Harvard Medical School, The University of Chicago, Massachusetts General Hospital, and The White House, yet we still felt we weren’t making a big enough impact in our work. So, we placed our figurative badges on the desk and left institutions people tend not to walk away from.
Frustrated by the world of work, we co-founded Strategy of Mind, an executive coaching and management consulting firm rooted in non-traditional business subjects like philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. We help individuals, and the organizations they work for, perform better.
Since our founding, we've written articles about our alternative approach for a number of outlets, including: The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Quartz, Fast Company, Huffington Post, LinkedIn, SHRM, and Training Industry. Our work has been cited in Inc. Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and we delivered a TEDx in April 2017. Our book, Think Talk Create, was published in September 2021 by Hachette: PublicAffairs.
We believe that through human empathy, dialogue, and the dynamic exchange of ideas, every individual is capable of promoting positive change in their professional environment. By applying the timeless methodology of Active Inquiry—thinking, talking, and creating—people are able to solve the world’s greatest challenges, while changing the way the world works.
Ryan & David
More about Ryan Stelzer
Ryan co-founded Strategy of Mind as a management consultant and certified executive coach specializing in organizational performance improvement.
Prior to his work in consulting, Ryan served at The White House as a Presidential Management Fellow during the Obama Administration, where his team was responsible for improving and sustaining high levels of performance across federal agencies. Before this, Ryan worked as a Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Export-Import Bank.
Ryan has delivered a TEDx Talk and written articles for various publications. He holds a master's degree from the University of Chicago and undergraduate degrees from Boston University and the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Ryan is the co-author of Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans.
More about David Brendel
David co-founded Strategy of Mind as a psychiatrist, certified executive coach, leadership specialist, and philosophical counselor based in Boston.
David is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) of the International Coach Federation (ICF). He has vast experience as an executive coach and leadership trainer across a wide diversity of corporate settings. He is an expert in applying cognitive psychology and leadership techniques in executive coaching and corporate training programs.
David writes about his approach in frequent articles for the Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and other publications. David earned an MD from Harvard Medical School and PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago.
David co-authored Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans.
