Sally Breyley Parker and Argerie Vasilakes

TimeZero partners Sally Breyley Parker and Argerie Vasilakes are at the heart of the conversation about humans and living systems. They are veterans of sustainability, systems thinking and organizational learning.  Together they have developed a living systems approach to working with leaders, teams, organizations and communities.  Based on practices and theories of human, behavior and organization development, their approach integrates biomimicry — the conscious emulation of life’s genius. They model their own business on living systems.
 
Coming from complementary backgrounds of architecture, cultural anthropology, organization development, and theater, they bring years of creating conditions for flourishing enterprise. Both have worked extensively with business, government, and academic organizations. An entrepreneur, Sally was founder and president of Currere, Inc., an organization development and design firm. She contributed her expertise in organizational culture, strategy, design, multi-party collaboration, leadership development, and sustainability. An intrapreneur, Argerie was an organization development executive who created and led departments and practice communities for organization development, global learning and development and sustainability. She led and consulted on efforts in worldwide culture change, leadership development and change management. Sally received a Telly Bronze Award in 2007 for her contributions as content consultant to IdeaStream, Designed to Perform. Argerie participated at the UN in the 2015 launch of the Flourish Prizes to honor businesses which are agents of world benefit. Each has presented her work at the Academy of Management: Sally in trans-organizational design and Argerie in practical internal organization development.
 
Sally holds a BA Interior Design, a BS Cultural Anthropology, and an MA Cultural Anthropology (coursework) from Kent State University. She holds certificates in Advanced Strategic Organization Design from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and in Organization and Systems Development from The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the Gestalt International Study Center. She is a certified Gestalt practitioner and faculty for the Gestalt Center for Organization and Systems Development in Cleveland OH and Seattle, WA. She has completed the Foundation Program in Theory U through the Presencing Institute, as well as programs in Appreciative Inquiry, leadership and team development, strategic planning, and change management through Yale University, Harvard College, The Cape Cod Institute, and Case Western Reserve University. Her publications include numerous articles on sustainability and she is a contributor to Organizing for Sustainability Volume One and Organization Development and Change by Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley, 9th edition.
 
Argerie holds an M.Ed. from Cleveland State University, a Master’s of Science in Positive Organization Development from Case Western Reserve University, a BA from Chatham University with a major in Communications, and certifications, and honors in learning and OD practice and leadership. She was the GOJO OD Fellow from 2015 to 2016. She originated an MBA-level course on socially conscious human resources at Ursuline College in Ohio. She is a board member for Lake Erie Institute offering visionary environmental thought and practices, as well as on the board of a socially conscious business in Florida. Argerie’s article, “Transforming Ourselves to Transform our Organizations: Insights about an internal Practice Community,” is about her year co-designing and facilitating a community of practice with mid-career internal OD practitioners. It appears in the October 2017 issue of The OD Practitioner.