Team Bios | SGR Partners

Mitch Saunders

Mitch Saunders is the founder of SGR Partners and brings over 20 years experience working with conscious innovators in the corporate, public, and nonprofit sectors.

Mitch has accelerated the adoption of social and technical innovations, enabled breakthroughs for start-ups and Fortune companies alike, led numerous learning forums for Silicon Valley CEOs, and collaborated with world-class leaders to solve national and global problems.

Some of his most innovative projects include the conversion of a military base into a public university and the creation of a new form of conflict prevention in the Middle East. A pioneer himself, Mitch also founded and ran a state-wide nonprofit and, most notably, led two generations of ground-breaking research at MIT and beyond, producing insights that continue to guide his work and a growing international community of practice.

Maryliz Smith

Coming from an international career as a performance artist and coach, as well as having co-founded an organization that supports people to find new ways of living with cancer, Maryliz brings a distinct approach to the SGR team.

She offers two areas of expertise that set her apart. The first is having developed powerful ways to teach leaders effective ways to bring the best version of themselves to the situations that matter most. This involves learning proven methods for quickly shifting one’s mental-emotional state.

Her other specialty is helping individuals uncover and leverage their unique way of creating value, applying an innovative process to optimize coherent flow with teams in their organizations.

If you want to learn more about her work as a performance artist, go to MarylizSmith.com.

Matt Dockerty

Matt is a coach for organizational leaders as well as a facilitator for ELIA learning labs.

Matt has extensive experience in leading and guiding organisations through transformational initiatives. He has lived and worked in 10 countries including Canada, Hong Kong, England, Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. Previous roles include: leading a 550-person global transformation team in the banking sector, CIO for a Canadian Credit Union system and an Advisory board member for companies in the Vancouver Technology sector.

His personal mission is to ‘inspire and enable people to create organisations and systems that allow the realisation of their greatest potential’. His strengths incorporate strong meaning making skills, an ability to integrate technology, business and people in problem solving, and wide experience of Digital business models and technologies. He enjoys working with people and companies whose goal is to make a positive difference to the world around them.

Andrea Freeman

Andrea is a coach for organizational leaders as well as a facilitator for ELIA learning labs.

Andrea Freeman is an experienced organizational leader. She has led departments of over 120 people and is well respected for her ability to lead complex change initiatives and develop high performing teams. Throughout her career, she has navigated the increased scope and complexity that comes with challenges like promotions to senior roles, managing up, working with a Board, and forming generative partnerships with external organizations. That’s why she’s committed to supporting other mid-career professionals as a certified leadership coach (CPCC, PCC) and team facilitator.

Her personal ethos is that we can learn from anything - the highs, the lows and everything in between. She particularly enjoys helping clients navigate the noise of organizational life, pick out the things that matter the most, and then formulate a plan for moving forward. You can count on Andrea to create a learning environment that is safe, challenging and fun.

Bill Dow

Bill is a coach for organizational leaders as well as a facilitator for ELIA learning labs.

Bill brings to the ELIA team and his clients over 25 years of executive experience within the Health and Education sectors. His previous roles including, Director for Radiology, Dean School of Health Sciences and VP Academic Affairs provided a rich ledger of projects and experiences of significant system building, iteration and transformation. His level of experience is now represented across the diversity of recent projects and coaching engagements such as, independent school education, start-up advising, renewable energy storage, several Board responsibilities and Cities as a learning laboratory.

Bill’s coaching approach could be described as coming alongside leaders as a partner in learning. He is particularly good at picking up what’s needed next to help individuals and teams take their contributions to the next level of effectiveness and creativity. Importantly your current experiences will serve as the experiential learning laboratory and provide the space to build your leadership capacity and capability.

Dane Karr

Dane is a coach for organizational leaders as well as a facilitator for ELIA learning labs.

Dane has over 25 years technical expertise in biotech and is a subject matter expert in preclinical development. He was most recently the VP of Preclinical Development at Nurix Therapeutics where his team advanced multiple programs from research into the clinic. In this leadership role, Dane mentored individuals in the organization and initiated a learning lab for leaders to develop and practice their skills on case studies of immediate relevance to the organization.

Dane’s approach to coaching and facilitation is to create a collegial environment where individuals are comfortable working on difficult issues that will better themselves and/or their organizations. Dane prefers to work with his clients on real time challenges such that adjustments made will receive the benefit of immediate feedback from the coach, organization, or the group (in the case of a leadership lab). These exercises allow leaders a safe way to sharpen their skills and reach their full potential.