Laura Santana, PhD, CWMF
Chief Learning & Development Officer
Laura's career has spanned the domains of leadership development, executive coaching, mindfulness facilitation, hospice care, fitness, and integral wellbeing. She has worked across sectors, languages, cultures, continents—with volunteers of NGOs, C-suite executives, and the spaces in between. She is a Founding Partner of Elevate Institute and a Global Leadership Development Consultant.
Laura brings three decades of deep listening, mindful perspectives, and regenerative thinking in service of sustainable living and working. Her practices invite self-awareness, meaningful connection with others, and identification of purposes—to liberate thinking from the grips of past practice and the confinement of the human ego. Her design and delivery of development programs and coaching draws upon insights from positive psychology, neuroscience, mindfulness, adult development theory, health science, wisdom traditions, and nature. She has been a consultant to medical staff in corporate wellness programs, government and private hospitals; a wellness educator in fitness facilities, television programs, classrooms and leadership programs; and a teacher in boardrooms, gyms and ashrams.
Education: PhD Leadership & Change (Antioch University), MS Organizational Development (United States International University Mexico), BA Psychology (University of California Irvine), post-graduate studies in Thanatology/hospice care.
Certifications: Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator, Executive Coach, Personal Trainer, & Yoga Instructor.
Professional Affiliations: International Leadership Association, Institute of Coaching, Mindful Leader
David Dorn
Vice President Coaching and LeadershipDevelopment
David brings experience from three distinct careers. As an engineer at NASA Mission Control, he designed on-orbit spacecraft trajectories, trained Flight Controllers in planning astronaut activities, and led an innovation initiative within Mission Planning. During 16 years as an entrepreneur, he founded a group of vertically integrated businesses in design and manufacturing, wholesale, and retail. For the past 25 years, David has focused his passion for human development as an Executive Coach and facilitator of leadership programs.
He believes great leaders and teams don’t just happen by accident. David views coaching as a collaborative partnership that combines the wisdom, skills, and experience of both parties to envision an improved state and work systematically to achieve it. He works with leaders to zero in on what they really want to accomplish – and helps assure they will be sustainable in impacting the future.
Coaching clients span most industries and types of organizations and vary from individual contributors to the highest levels. They include CEOs of multinational corporations, active-duty Major Generals in the military, Partners in top-tier global consulting firms, NASA Deputy Directors, Academic Medicine Department Chiefs, and the Chief Health Officers of several states and US territories. He works with University Deans, leaders within religious organizations, and with many senior leaders of Not-for-Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations. David has also trained numerous coaches, and he equips leaders with the tools and training they need to develop other leaders. He has worked in countries on five continents and is fluent in English and Spanish.
As a member of the International Leadership Association, David presented at its 2010 global conference on the subject “Coaching and Developing Leaders for the 21st Century” – as well as at the 2016 Regional Conference on “Leadership Across Latin America”. He also presented on “Development of Transformational Leadership” at the International Symposium on Transformational Leadership held at Peru’s Universidad del Pacifico in 2012. In 2013, he was invited to address the Institute for Mining Safety on the topic “Leadership and its Impact on a Culture of Safety” at its annual conference in Peru. His membership in the USA Triathlon Federation continues to inform his executive wellness and sustainability coaching. He is the author of the upcoming book Lessons Learned from the Leaders I Coach.