Pete is a seasoned consultant in process improvement, organization change and Six Sigma initiatives who is one of the recognized "experts" in the field. He has provided senior executive training and deployment consulting services in business improvement and Six Sigma efforts for such companies as GE Capital, Sun Microsystems, Cendant, Cisco Systems, Starwood Hotels, Honeywell, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and many others.
Pete spent his early career in broadcasting and marketing before entering the management consulting and training field in the mid-1980s. He gained experience quickly, helping improve decision making and problem solving processes at large organizations in various industries including financial services, petrochemical, high tech, consumer products and health care. Pete formed Pivotal Resources in 1993 with the mission of helping clients build lasting success through practical and creative skills and streamlined processes.
He is author of the recent book on 21st Century change leadership, The Six Sigma Leader and has co-authored several other popular books including What is Six Sigma? and The Six Sigma Way -- which was named one of the most influential business books of the past 20 years by Forbes magazine. He has also written articles for such publications as CEO Magazine and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and is a regular contributor on leadership issues to Forbes.com.
He holds an MBA from National University in San Diego and degrees in English and History from the University of California.
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Cheralynn Abbott - Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Cheralynn is responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations for Pivotal Resources in the U.S. and abroad. She has extensive experience in planning and coordinating organization-wide business change efforts with such firms as adidas, Cisco Systems, BP, Starwood Hotels and Target among many others.
Cheralynn has been involved in business process improvement throughout her career. In her first position, with a drug testing laboratory, she was responsible for assessing operational performance along with developing and implementing more efficient procedures. She then spent 5 years in the software industry with a firm that specialized in applications for the printing industry. It is there that she became more involved with training, developing curriculum and facilitating workshops. In addition, she served as Product Manager for new software projects. Leveraging her previous process and training experience, she led a team of engineers in designing user interfaces, creating product documentation and developing training programs. She was promoted rapidly—eventually becoming senior manager of consulting services and spent significant time developing marketing plans, new product strategies and creating strategic alliances in North America, Europe and Asia.
Cheralynn joined Pivotal Resources in 2000 to lead marketing efforts. Again, her responsibilities quickly expanded to encompass product development, talent management and operations. With our clients, she works directly to help define change goals and plan implementation of Pivotal’s diverse solutions. One of her greatest strengths is in advising organizations on how to outline realistic objectives that yield short-term results while building long-term capability. Many of the projects she has led have expanded into strong, multi-year initiatives with significant client results.
Cheralynn’s operational responsibilities today include finance, coordination of international offices and partners, and resourcing of consulting services for major client engagements.
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Brett Cooper - Vice President of Client Strategy
Brett is an expert at helping companies assess the value of launching business improvement initiatives and at guiding the development of tailored implementation strategies. He has over 15 years of business management experience, much of it involving designing, managing and improving key business processes with companies such as American Express and Monster.com.
Since joining Pivotal Resources, Brett has advised a number of organizations on how to launch and manage their transformational change initiatives, including small- and mid-sized firms and Fortune 500 companies. His experience crosses many industry boundaries including Health Care, Government, Financial Services, and Technology. Brett's client list includes organizations such as Veterans Health Administration, State of Oregon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Charles Schwab, Kaiser Permanente, GMAC, Oracle and Bahamas Telecommunications.
With a strong understanding of the most effective change methodologies – such as Lean, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard and Hoshin planning – Brett can help any company evaluate and plan a successful process improvement program.
Brett earned an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a Bachelor's degree in Marketing from San Diego State University. He is a frequent speaker on topics relating to business change and process excellence. Brett is a volunteer coordinator for the East Bay Stand Down program, a not-for-profit serving the needs of homeless Veterans throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Steve Dorn - Director of Client Strategy
Steve is responsible for helping Pivotal clients achieve their change objectives by outlining the most effective mix of solutions to deliver short and long-term results. A seasoned consultant and manager, he has strong expertise in helping leaders and organizations tackle critical strategic and tactical business problems.
Steve’s career began working with a retail chain to develop the talent and structure to support continued growth of the business. Implementing process improvements and the measures and metrics to create an integrated growth strategy, Steve facilitated the redesign of essential roles and processes, and created employee development programs. Moving into a traditional consulting role as an executive with Collister and Company, Steve worked with organizations to identify high value projects and develop effective policies, procedures and processes to drive change. A skilled coach and workshop leader, Steve facilitated and led learning programs designed to support individual and group learning. As a leader for Westaff, an international staffing firm, Steve developed an in-house administrative services group that provided claims process administration and employment relations coaching to over 400 company and franchise locations nation-wide.
Steve’s extensive healthcare experience includes working with a mix of independent physician offices, clinics, Kaiser Permanente and Hill Physicians Medical Group where he was recognized for bringing innovative solutions to long-standing problems by integrating process redesign with deliberate learning practice to produce rapid, effective change throughout the organization. Utilizing effective tools from Lean, Business Process Redesign, Scorecard, among others, Steve led cross-functional groups to redesign mission critical processes and helped to create cultural change. A student of healthcare change, Steve is engaged with issues of healthcare technology innovation, home health, and business process change.
Steve holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration Management, with a minor in Human Resources from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His ongoing educational development includes courses of study and certification in Coaching, Organizational Design and Communication.
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Vicky (Ying Hui) Hu - Director of Client Strategy, China
Vicky is responsible for managing our clients in Greater China. She is an experienced manager and business change consultant with background in sales, service and product development.
A native of China, Vicky began her career as a Key Account Manager for Taili Information & Technology Company in Beijing and developed new accounts such as Daqing and Shenli Oilfields. She then joined Tai Guen Enterprise Company where she served as assistant to the firm’s President and later as Project Manager supervising the new product introduction process. Her responsibilities ranged from team building to after-sale service, collecting market feedback for improvement and innovation. She managed the supply chain, led cross-functional teams, trained and coached a project team. Later, as Process Manager and Senior Six Sigma Consultant Strategy Consultant at Flextronics, she designed, implemented and maintained process excellence in the Design Center. Her focus was to create shared commitment to Six Sigma deployment plans and targets and train people in process improvement methods throughout her company.
With Pivotal, Vicky is providing solutions to help companies solve critical business problems and make change a competitive advantage. She brings our clients extensive cross-cultural skills combined with a deep understanding of technology and production processes to leverage them for continuous improvement.
Vicky holds an International MBA degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Automation and Electronic Engineering at Shenyang Ligong University. She also attended the SDA Bocconi Business School in Italy where she led a strategic plan development project for FIAT, focused on the China market.
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Mo Cayer - Executive Consultant
Mo Cayer is a global consultant specializing in leadership and organizational change. He supports Pivotal clients on a wide range of challenges tied to supporting strategic business goals through major transformations and accelerating the development of leadership talent.
Mo started his career in the retail industry, working in various HR Development roles at JCPenney Co., and later with Macy's, as Vice President, Organization Development & Executive Compensation. He was also with the consulting firm Development Dimensions International (DDI) as the head of Strategies for Service Excellence.
Joining GE Capital Corp. in 1995, he was the Leader for Best Practices & Program Development, designing a wide variety of leadership and organizational development interventions (e.g., Six Sigma, e-business, Strategic Leadership Skills, acquisitions & integrations, applying GE's legendary Work-Out and Change Processes, etc.). Most recently, he served for several years at Bayer Healthcare, NA, & Pharmaceutical, as Director, Organizational & Leadership Development. He participated in several large organizational change initiatives including a major restructuring of Bayer Healthcare NA. He has also served as a senior consultant to the American Management Association in redesigning their leadership development portfolio, and to several other leading firms in pharmaceutical/healthcare (BMS, Merck), insurance (LOMA, Genworth, John Hancock) and financial services (American Express, Fidelity).
Mo holds a Ph.D. in Industrial & Organizational Psychology from New York University where he also taught as an Adjunct Professor. He currently is a faculty member in Psychology and Management at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, and is a member of the American Psychological Association, Academy of Management, Society for Human Resource Management and American Society for Training & Development.
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Dewey Dorsett - Executive Consultant
Dewey has been a lead consultant, executive coach and trainer for more than a decade to both the service and manufacturing industries. His consulting work has encompassed Six Sigma, Lean, Business Process Re-design (BPR), revenue generation, cycle time reduction and cost reduction and Supply Chain management. His focus is on aligning process management initiatives with profit and customer retention optimization. Additionally, Dewey has extensive experience in team building, team facilitation and change management.
Dewey began his career in the textile industry in New York City, working in sales and product management with one of the larger manufacturing houses in the industry. Then, as a Marketing and Planning Analyst for ITT Rayonier, a market pulp producer, he was responsible for market and profit analyses of development projects. From 1991-1996, he worked at ConvaTec (a Bristol-Myers Squibb company) where he had responsibility for developing and implementing the corporate Total Quality Leadership (TQL) initiative. He coordinated the company global roll-out which included Europe, the Middle East and Asia; and managed the integration the TQL initiative with existing ConvaTec learning systems.
Dewey moved in to the consulting field in 1996, initially working with Meritus, LLC prior to joining Pivotal Resources in 2000. He has conducted extensive consulting work in program design, implementation and project execution for such clients as Starwood Hotels, UnitedHealth Group, Mercer Consulting, Century 21/Coldwell Banker Real Estate, GMAC Mortgage and BP. He has also trained executives, Black Belt and Green Belts for a diverse array of companies including GE Capital, Nedcor Bank, Milliken & Company, 21st Century Insurance, HSBC, Wells Fargo, and Oracle, among others.
Dewey has a strong international background, consulting management groups in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. He also spent three years in Sierra Leone, West Africa, serving in a U.S. Peace Corps agricultural program.
Dewey has an M.B.A. with a concentration in finance from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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