How to Be Exceptional

Joe Folkman is co-founder and President of Zenger Folkman, a firm that utilizes evidence-driven, strengths-based methods to improve organizations and the people within them. He is a respected authority on assessment and change, and an acclaimed keynote speaker at conferences and seminars the world over. His topics focus on a variety of subjects related to leadership, feedback, and individual and organizational change.

As one of the nation’s renowned psychometricians, his extensive expertise focuses on survey research and change management. He has over 30 years of experience, consulting with some of the world’s most prestigious and successful organizations. His unique measurement tools are designed utilizing a database comprised of over a half million assessments on almost 50,000 leaders. Because these tools specifically address critical business results, facilitating development and change is the main focus of measurement efforts.

Joe’s research has received placement in several publications including The Wall Street Journal’s National Business Employment Weekly, Training and Development Magazine, and Executive Excellence.

A distinguished expert in the field of survey design and data analysis, Joe consults with organizations large and small, public and private. He has had engagements with clients such as AT&T, Boeing, ConocoPhillips, CIBC, General Mills, Hunt Consolidated, Koch Industries, Marathon Oil, Nortel, Fidelity, First American, Reed-Elsevier, Safeway, Thomson Reuters, US Navy, UCSD, Wells Fargo and Weyerhaeuser.

Prior to forming Zenger Folkman, Joe was a founding partner of Novations Group, Inc., where he led the employee survey and 360 assessment practices. Joe holds a doctorate in Social and Organizational Psychology, as well as a master’s degree in Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University.

John H. "Jack" Zenger is the co-founder and CEO of Zenger Folkman, a professional services firm providing consulting, leadership development programs and implementation software for organizational effectiveness initiatives.  He is considered a world expert in the field of leadership development, and is a highly respected and sought after speaker, consultant and executive coach.

Jack’s career has combined entrepreneurial, corporate and academic activities. In 1977 he co-founded Zenger-Miller and served as its President and CEO until 1991. The Wall St. Journal named it one of the 10 best suppliers of executive development. He later became the President of Provant, a publicly traded combination of 21 companies in the training industry. From 1966 to 1977 he was Vice President of Human Resources for Syntex Corporation, and from 1992 to 1996 was a Group Vice President of the Times Mirror Corporation.

His academic experience includes serving on the faculty at USC and later teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2011, he was honored with the American Society of Training and Development’s Lifetime Achievement in Workplace Learning and Performance Award, given to a sole recipient per year. Because of his contributions to the field of leadership development and training, Jack was inducted into the Human Resources Development Hall of Fame. His colleagues in the training industry awarded him the "Thought Leadership Award" in 2007. He and his wife Holly both received honorary doctoral degrees from Utah Valley University.

He received a doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, an MBA degree from UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Brigham Young University. Jack served as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Utah Valley University and currently is a Regent for the higher education system in the State of Utah.