Trainers

Jeannie Alan

Jeannie Alan hails from New York, where she earned a BSRN from the University of Rhode Island. She then spent 3 years as Head Nurse at an ICU.

Looking for a lighter turn in her profession, she began a career as an actress and Casting Director, working in commercials, television and Improv, which laid the groundwork for her work with Eloqui.

But her love of animals interfered, and as a Zookeeper she hand-raised many large animals, including elephants, gorillas, and mountain lions. During that time she conducted behavioral research on small apes.

Jeannie then founded Painted by You, using ceramics as team building and stress management within corporations. She leveraged this knowledge to create inner city middle school team building programs. Never one to dawdle, she developed Jeannie’s Homemade Candies, and risks injury from a devoted clientele if she ever stops making her tasty products.

In addition to the pride of her daughter graduating Ph.D from Northwestern University, Jeannie has applied her skill in behavioral research to Eloqui’s less hairy primate clients.

Robert Dickman

Bob brings a pragmatic coaching perspective to successfully communicate new ideas. He works with leaders to improve speaking, writing, and non-verbal communication using narrative techniques developed from Western rhetorical, cognitive and dramatic traditions.

Collaborating with senior management teams, he has developed workshops for clients at the United States Naval Post Graduate school, Ford Motor company, Mattel Toys and Shell Oil, among others. His seminar “Speaking the Language of Leaders” has been conducted throughout the U.S. As a thought leader in the field of narrative communication, he is frequently published.

His recent article, “The Four Essentials of Great Stories” appeared in M.I.T.’s Reflections Journal. TEC International listed his article “Why Telling Stories Makes Good Business Sense” as one of the ten most influential articles of the year. The actor Gene Hackman said of him: “Bob is a powerful and intuitive coach. If you want to change fast, work with him.” Bob has recently co-authored a powerful book on the value of storytelling in business called “Elements of Persuasion” .

William Hall

William received his formal theater training at Boston University and then took a ‘real-world graduate class’ performing on the streets of San Francisco.

He is the founder of BATS Improv Theatre and Training Center in San Francisco the largest full time Improv performance and training company in the west. He continues to serve on the Board of Directors, perform and teach regularly.

William has designed and delivered lectures and workshops for the University of Texas, University of Florida, Stanford University, The College of Marin and San Francisco State University. He has designed and delivered workshops for businesses around the world including the Annual Complexity Conference.

He is a mask maker and trainer. He has led mask training at Universities, acting classes and business conferences throughout the world. William has developed and trained performance teams for Disneyland, the Queen Mary and the World of Coke-a-Cola in Las Vegas. He has directed award winning theatre (SF Fringe Festival, Best of Fringe Award) and brought Improv to Poland in 2006 when he directed an improvised play in Lodz, Poland.

William has written and delivered hundreds of presentations for many companies including Microsoft, HP, Intel, Sun, Apple. As a performer, William has appeared in numerous feature films including, Twisted, The Right Stuff, Howard the Duck, Leonard Part VI, Murder in the First and Father’s Day. He has appeared in hundreds of corporate videos for a wide range of companies including AT&T, Hewlett Packard, Sega, Pacific Bell and Intel.

Mark Jaffe

Mark partners with CEOs to strategically grow their companies by realizing and leveraging their company’s true, core value propositions into new and multiple revenue streams. In addition, he has collaborated with his clients to restructure their organizations, generate momentum and quantifiable results.

Before consulting, Mark’s track record of corporate leadership spanned the entertainment/consumer products industries. Most recently, as Chief Executive Officer for Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf, an accounting and integrated financial services firm in Santa Barbara, CA, Mark led the company to its highest revenues since it was founded in 1948.

While head of Walt Disney Records, Mark capitalized upon his knowledge of the pop and family entertainment marketplace to grow the company’s revenue line from $30 million to $120 million over a five-year period. He was also intimately involved in the rollout and expansion of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid franchises during this time.

Prior to Disney, Mark introduced high quality music programming for children to America with recording artists such as Raffi and grew the A&M children’s music business from start-up to $14 million within five years. More recently, he held senior executive positions at Warner Bros., DreamWorks and EMI. He also founded and grew Ecadia, a company that successfully developed and sold enterprise software focused upon buying decision systems technology for internet-based B2C and B2B commerce. Subsequently, he spearheaded the growth of Audit Integrity, a financial services software company that assesses the accuracy of corporate financial disclosures for accounting firms, governmental regulatory agencies, D&O insurance companies, and the investment community.

Mark received his Bachelors of Arts Degree in Communications from UCLA and his Masters of Business Administration in Marketing/Finance from the University of Southern California. He is actively involved in the community serving on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara.