Thought Leaders

Michael Ballé is co-author of The Gold Mine, a best-selling business novel of lean turnaround, and recently The Lean Manager, a novel of lean transformation, both published by the Lean Enterprise Institute. For the past 25 years, he has studied lean transformation and helped companies develop a lean culture. He is an engaging and colorful public […]

Joshua Howell is president and executive team leader at the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI). For over a decade, he has supported individuals and organizations with lean transformations for improved business performance. As a coach, he helps people become lean thinkers and practitioners through experiential learning, believing such an approach can lead to enterprise-wide improvement. Regular e-letters […]

Karen has over 30 years of experience leading, training, and developing the capability of team members and executives in rapid-growth environments. Most recently, she’s coached clients in various industries as they adopt lean thinking and practices. They include Microsoft (data center construction), Legal Seafood (hospitality); TriMark (distribution); Abiomed (medical research and device manufacturing), and the […]

Founder and Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy in the U.K., Daniel T. Jones is a senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, management thought leader, and mentor on applying lean process thinking to every type of business. He is the author with James P. Womack of the influential and popular management books that describe […]

Continuous improvement leader and coach. Her responsibilities include:​ Lee served as vice president and special assistant to the president for business transformation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, from 2004 to 2014. During that time, she approached problems holistically, collaborating with senior leaders, doctors, nurses, and staff, to design care […]

Jim is a senior advisor at Lean Enterprise Institute and a board member at Adrian Steel. He has a unique blend of industry leadership experience and rigorous scholarship, which he draws upon to improve organizational performance at a select group of companies.  Jim’s most recent industry experience was as Chief Operating Officer at Rivian, an electric […]

Mark Reich spent 23 years working for Toyota, starting in 1988 with six years in Japan in the Overseas Planning Division, where he was responsible for Product Planning and worked with Chief Engineers to define vehicle specifications for overseas markets. This was at a critical time when Toyota was introducing the Lexus to the world. […]

John Shook learned about lean management while working for Toyota for 11 years in Japan and the U.S., helping it transfer production, engineering, and management systems from Japan to NUMMI and other operations around the world. While at Toyota’s headquarters, he became the company’s first American kacho (manager) in Japan. In the U.S., Shook joined […]

Widely considered the father of the lean movement, Womack has been talking and publishing about creating value through continuous innovation around deep customer understanding for many years. In the late eighties, he and Dan Jones led MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Research Program (IMVP), which introduced the term “lean” to describe Toyota’s revolutionary management system. Based […]

Lex Schroeder is a strategy and operations leader/writer breaking open new conversations about the future of work. A longtime editor in the systems thinking community, she has led strategic initiatives at The Lean Enterprise Institute and The Berkana Institute. In 2015, she served as Founding Editor and Co-Lead of The Lean Post at lean.org. She also […]

Following a career highlighted by leadership roles in engineering, supply chain, continuous improvement, and quality in various industries, including healthcare, academia, and manufacturing, Kelley retired from Union Pacific Railroad in 2018. Now serving as a senior advisor to BBH Capital Partners, she assists in sourcing, investment evaluation, transaction execution, and providing post-investment value-added oversight to […]