Profile

JEN STINE, PARTNER & FOUNDER

Jen Stine is a consultant, teacher, writer and coach helping creative, mission-driven leaders and groups to excel through learning, collaboration and innovation. Her specialty is coaching “wicked smart” leaders (often founders) of small and growing organizations across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Clients typically face rapid growth, complex team dynamics, and/or new opportunities for leadership. She helps teams develop strategic plans, adopt authentic and effective leadership behaviors, and design systems to embed best practices across the entire organization. Her engagements are strategic, focused, and cost-effective.

Her training includes over a decade of research and case writing at Harvard Business School where she developed two cutting-edge leadership programs seeking to bridge the gap between leadership scholarship and practice: the Leadership Initiative and the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP).  While at Harvard, Jen had the opportunity to write more than 20 case studies, including a three-year series describing the challenges of leading the Long Beach Unified School District, written while Jen was a founding member of the PELP research team.

As a Partner at Paradox Strategies from 2015-2019, Jen worked closely with HBS Professor Linda Hill and former Pixar CTO Greg Brandeau, to develop leaders of innovation. At Paradox, Jen and the team developed a proprietary assessment of organizational culture and capabilities (re:Route) based on Hill’s bestselling book: Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation. Jen also directed the analysis of innovation potential of over 50 organizations around the globe.

Jen herself holds leadership roles and knows from experience that leadership is easier said than done.  In addition to the partnership at Paradox, Jen served as Interim COO at Mobius Executive Leadership for nearly 2 years (2021-2022), which was truly an an honor. From 2008-2011, she directed organization planning and development for Root Capital, a nonprofit social investment fund, where she designed and managed both performance management and strategic planning as well as HR and IT. Jen has also led expeditions, recruited executives, launched new programs, cycled across the country, and coauthored the Saroga 360, a strengths-based assessment which evaluates seven core elements of nonprofit leadership.

Jen has a Master’s degree in Education from Bank Street College and has spent over twenty years studying and testing approaches to professional development and high performance on the job. Jen earned her B.A. in Religion at Williams College. She trained as a team coach with faculty from the Georgetown University leadership coaching program. She is also a member of the Boston Facilitator Roundtable. 

Achievements & Certifications

10 Powerful Learning Moments

10. Starting my own business.

9. Serving as Interim COO in a global organization during a period of rapid growth. 

8. Firing a key staff member. 

7. Listening to leaders tell stories about racism in our public schools during one memorable afternoon session at PELP. 

6. Working as a developmental editor with Linda Hill and her team on their award-winning book Collective Genius. 

5. Singing Monteverdi in St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy. 

4. Becoming a parent. (And then parenting during a pandemic.)

3. Writing a case-study about cross-cultural leadership in Wuhan, China at age 22. 

2. Attending the 2002 TED conference in Monterey, CA.

1. Painting a portrait of Neil Diamond. 

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