R. David Pettit, Co-Founder and Managing Director

David is Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Center for Context. David helps the world’s most respected organizations harness the energy of their people and partners to create enduring change. His work focuses on mastering innovation to influence corporate culture, alter the way organizations respond to the challenge of innovation, and strengthen relationships with partners along the value chain. His expertise in organizational behavior and has helped Fortune 500 companies successfully organize for innovation, execute culture change, and usher in adaptive business processes across the globe. David also coaches senior executives and high potential middle managers to achieve full potential for themselves and their organizations.

David has taught thousands of leaders at all levels of their organization to understand adaptive approaches to thinking and strategy and use that understanding to manage organizational and personal change. David is a frequent speaker at major national and international conferences on the subjects of organizational strategy and change.

Prior to founding the Center for Context, David was Vice President of Organizational Transformation at a Princeton based management consultancy. David has been with Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and Bell Communications Research (now Telcordia) where he led major Business Process Re-Engineering and New Product and Technology Development programs.

David has a BA in Psychology and an MSW from The University of Pennsylvania, and leadership training from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Karen Glendinning

Karen’s abilities in building innovation in, and across organizations, began in the creation of her own career experiences across many types of organizations where innovation meant very different things. She has worked with R&D organizations in Consumer, Pharma and hi Tech to build organization capability, break down competing silos and enable innovation. The one constant in her background for innovation is the ability to create a workable and spirited environment where breakthrough ideas germinate.

 Karen has taught leaders over the years how to create this organizational capability. She has extensive experience in high performance team development, strategy deployment and organization effectiveness. Karen is a frequent speaker at national conferences on the topics of transition management within organizations. Karen has worked extensively in the area of leadership development and training in both pharmaceutical and consumer products companies both here and abroad.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Karen was Vice President of Strategic Processes for a large Pharmaceutical Company, were she launched numerous innovative practices leading to successful change efforts, while working with the Sr. Leadership teams to develop organizational capability in many areas.

Her past work experiences have included both HR generalist and specialist assignments, in Europe and the US, working for Pepsi, Frito Lay, Texas Instruments, Warner Lambert, and Marion Labs (now Sanofi- Aventis), and have included extensive global activities in Puerto Rico, Asia, Canada and Europe.