Managing the Learning Function Certificate

Facilitators

Rita Bailey

As CEO and Founder of QVF Partners, Ltd., Rita partners with organizations and individuals who want to transform ordinary work environments into high-performing, profitable cultures. She shares her expertise and resources to help create workplaces where enlightened leaders can leverage the strengths and diversity of their people as a competitive advantage.

During her 25 year career at Southwest Airlines, Rita served in several roles including Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, and HR. In her last position she was Director of the Southwest Airlines University for People. She was responsible for the design, development, and implementation of Leadership and Personal Development programs for over 32,000 employees. She also established a Career Development Services team, responsible for helping employees develop a career path.

Rita has served on several advisory committees and boards and was a member of the ASTD Board of Directors, serving as Chair of the ASTD Board in 2005. She is often quoted in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Corporate Meetings and Incentives, and The Wall Street Journal on topics of recruiting and training practices. Rita is the co-author of the new book, Destination Profit: Creating People-Profit Opportunities in Your Organization.

As an international speaker and consultant, she has presented to and worked with groups in Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Japan on topics including organizational culture, people strategies, leadership, innovation, customer service, and branding.

When asked what business she is in, the answer is simply: “The People Business.”

John Coné

John Coné is a consultant and writer on issues of organizational learning, with special emphasis on learning strategy and technology enabled learning. John also serves as coach to several Chief Learning Officers at major corporations.

He has served as Vice President of Learning and Development at Dell Computer Corporation. At Dell he was responsible for the education of all Dell employees worldwide and implemented a philosophy and infrastructure aimed at leveraging technology, putting the learner in control, and making learning an integral part of working. Under his leadership, nontraditional methods came to represent more than three quarters of all learning in the company. He was credited with designing the first executive education program in the Fortune 500 in which the faculty consisted exclusively of the CEO and members of the executive committee.

During his tenure, Dell Learning received the “World Class Innovator” award from Innovation Associates and Fast Company Magazine, was named Corporate University of the Year by the National Alliance of Business, and was one of the first winners of the Excellence Awards presented by Corporate University Exchange and the Financial Times. Training magazine named Dell Learning to their top 50 in corporate education, and John as an e-learning evangelist. 

John served as the 2002 Chair of the Board of ASTD, served on the board and was Chair of ASTD’s Certification Institute. He has also served on the Editorial Board of Strategic HR Review, and the board of SumTotal Systems. 

Prior to Dell, John was Vice President of Human Resources for Sequent Computer Systems Inc. In that role, he redesigned the HR function at Sequent and founded the OET, a group of senior consultants specializing in business process design and reengineering, organizational design and planning, strategic human resource planning, and team development. He joined Sequent as President of Sequent University, which he formed. In that role, he also created the company’s first comprehensive quality strategy.

Prior to Sequent, John was a founder and creator of Motorola University (MU) and served as Director of Corporate Educational Services. In that role, he had responsibility for all aspects of the operation of the corporate education function. In his eleven years at Motorola, John was responsible for creation and start up of each of the major components of MU, and in his last two years with Motorola he personally led the company’s Senior Executive Program and the VP Task Force on Change.

John has designed and delivered a wide range of educational interventions and provided consultation to companies throughout the world on strategy development, quality, cycle time, benchmarking, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, the use of technology in corporate learning, and on the effective utilization of training and education.

Tina Thompson

For over 15 years, Tina Thompson has served as a learning and development professional in various organizations in positions including Director, Manager, Instructional Designer, Facilitator, and Coach. During her corporate career, Tina served as a Senior Learning Consultant and Learning Manager at AT&T and Lucent Technologies where she pioneered the use of facilitated distance learning, earning her Lucent’s prestigious “Role Model” award. Tina was sought out by Applied Systems, Inc., an insurance software development company, to build a Corporate University. Hired as the Director of Learning and Development, she built a team of learning professionals and quickly gained the trust of senior management by identifying key learning solutions that linked to critical business goals

At Panduit Corp. Tina built a Corporate University, bringing together learning solutions that provided development for employees on a global scale. Concentrating on Panduit’s core business needs, the team provided learning solutions to meet the needs of Oracle end-users, New Supervisors, Managers, Emerging Leaders, Engineers, and Salespeople. 

An advocate of lifelong learning, Tina continues to learn and grow through networking with other professionals and organizations. She has served as VP of Member Networking for CISPI (Chicago Chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement), and she is an active member of ASTD, CCASTD, SHRM, WorldWit, and the OD Network.   She has a BA in Education and a MA in Adult Education, and is a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT).