RECOMMENDATIONS

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"I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dr. Nagel. He supplies instant credibility, know-how and discipline to strategic planning and organizational development efforts. I've watched him work with accomplished board members, bringing them to a place of clarity and choice on long standing business model and value creation challenges. He did this while complex industry changes and diverse viewpoints were swirling about. He has a collaborative style, which allows him to effectively engage a broad range of board directors, staff members and outside experts. He's also a holistic thinker. This is reflected in the quality of his work and his capacity to take in multiple perspectives and skillfully integrate pertinent ideas.

I admire Dr. Nagel's professionalism and integrity. I highly recommend him."

John Snyder, Chairman, Snyder Operating Company

"Strategic clarity, team unity and operational alignment are vital things for a leader. Simply put, Mike Nagel helps executives achieve positive results in these areas. I value his thought and process leadership.

I hired Mike for a high priority strategy assignment. It required a significant amount of organizational change and integration in a short period of time. Right away, it was clear that he's wired to meet with key people and dig into a clients situation. He introduced frameworks that were valuable in establishing and managing new strategic priorities. He delivered impactful education and coaching with a fun relational style. Together we designed and led a large team offsite. He has an excellent ability to galvanizes participants around a shared strategy, work through tough issues and build momentum for its implementation.

I highly recommend Mike Nagel to any executive or management team facing the need to deliver on ambitious growth goals."

John Petersen, Executive Director National Channel, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

"I remember the season when our ministry began to decline. We were on a path to becoming a multi-site church. However, our internal attempts to address leadership succession were visibly failing and we lacked many of the strategic capabilities necessary to realize our vision. The evidence was troubling, we were losing members and staff unity was at a low.

Originally, I had my doubts when Mike Nagel was introduced at our executive team meeting. What could he know about ministry in a large church that might possibly make a difference for us? After all, we had a visionary senior pastor, a talented ministry team and elder body, a culture of worship and a history of God's favor.

I went on to partner with Mike for several years. He's a catalyst who gracefully worked with us to modernize our church-wide strategy. He designed and put into place many of the strategic practices, behaviors and governance structures we use today to keep our ministry healthy and resilient. Mike was also the architect of our leadership succession plan. Working closely with a transition team, he guided us to effectively transition to a new era of senior church leadership.

Mike is one of the most strategically capable people I know. He's spiritually and intellectually attuned, which enabled him to quickly to understand our theological distinctives. He looked deeply into our ministry situation and provided fresh insights into the factors and dynamics that caused it to function as it did. He is blessed with the knowledge, imagination and relationship skills to design clear solutions and he has the process discipline to see strategies through to completion. If your ministry needs a breakthrough, I have great confidence that Mike Nagel can help you achieve it."

Scott Stevens, Lead Pastor at North Way Christian Community

"Michael Nagel and I wrote a case study and article based on an innovative application he implemented at First Commonwealth Financial Corporation. Michael’s project was the first to embed the Balanced Scorecard deeply into corporate governance. While others may have written about this possibility, Michael put it into action and added features that had not existed before in practice or theory. In particular, he went beyond what I would have done, which was to encourage the company to use the BSC as a key Board document. Michael’s project added two innovative features – a series of executive scorecards to provide clear accountability between each member of the executive leadership team and the Board, and a Board scorecard that clearly identified and measured Board objectives. With Sarbanes-Oxley now requiring an annual Board evaluation, Michael’s framework is, to my mind, the most effective mechanism for measuring Board accountability. I should add that the project at FCFC that Michael led received national recognition when Bank Directors magazine gave FCFC its 2005 Governance Award “Presented to a board that has instituted and practices corporate governance in a superlative manner.”

Robert S. Kaplan, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

"I worked with Mike on a challenging strategy and organizational change project. His knowledge, independence and objectivity on these topics provided immediate confidence and reassurance to the Board of Directors. As a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, I was impressed at how quickly Mike studied and became conversant in the complexities and opportunities in the changing healthcare marketplace. His guidance goes well beyond typical textbook approaches. The quality of his analysis and the clarity of his deliverables help a board become decision-ready. He is skilled at working with a diverse set of accomplished directors, each with strong, often divergent viewpoints about organizational performance and strategy. He strikes an effective balance between being collaborative enough to draw out and extend valuable ideas yet directive enough to address key issues and move things along at a productive pace.

If your executive team or board need to make a strategic breakthrough, I recommend Mike Nagel."

Oscar Amparan, FACHE, Executive Vice President, Texas Health Resources, Inc.

"After working with Dr. Nagel, I can say his methods and ability stand apart. Before he did anything else, he took time to learn about us. He met with key individuals, executives and board members from locations across the country to understand the diversity of our services and our relatively complex structure. This enabled him to create an organization and executive development program which was focused exclusively on our nonprofit model and needs.

I believe his effectiveness is due in part to his interactive approach. He engaged a great number of our agency leaders and introduced us to various other academic and professional experts while working with us. In a meeting, he is skilled at explaining complex ideas in a way that resonates. He offers clear guidance on strategy and governance, changing roles from consultant to professor to executive as needed to produce productive outcomes. He received excellent feedback scores on the quality of his delivery and the relevance of his content.

Two of the most vital results we achieved include 1) we developed a network-wide strategy that described our shared priorities and unified us around a set of outcomes and impacts that we collectively aspire to achieve; 2) we came to agreement on the critical human and organizational capabilities local agencies need to develop and the enabling support services they require from our national office.

I recommend Dr. Nagel. He is an invaluable resource for any executive, management team or board of directors."

Jose L. Cela, President at SER-Jobs for Progress

"Mike Nagel provided thought leadership and worked closely with me, my finance leadership team and other members of management. We found him to be a very effective communicator and facilitator. In successfully guiding us through the implementation of our strategic management system, he continuously demonstrated a strong understanding of business fundamentals and showed himself to be a quick learner with an agile, inquiring mind.

I highly recommend him."

Harry Roberts, Former Executive Vice-President & Chief Financial Officer, Petro Canada

"Michael guided the design and implementation of an enterprise wide strategic management system at First Commonwealth Financial Corporation and at Excela Health. He is an individual with outstanding intellect and a skill set that is both conceptual in nature but practical as well. He was able to bring order to very complex systems and communicate effectively to all levels of management and to the board. His superb inter-personal skills and desire to achieve exceptional results form the basis for my unqualified recommendation."

David S. Dahlmann, Chairman of the Board, First Commonwealth Financial Corporation & Vice Chairman, Excela Health.

"I've devoted over 35 years to serving ministries and leading non profits that I care about. During that time I've worked with countless "experts" who claim to deliver. Mike Nagel stands apart as a true difference maker! He brings such perspective and know-how to issues of organizational strategy and governance. I've seen him successfully handle very challenging client circumstances involving senior executives and board members. He gets to know his clients from the inside out and together they develop powerful solutions. If your ministry or non profit needs a strategic breakthrough, you will find no better expert and guide than Mike Nagel."

Tom Wilson, former Chief Executive Officer of Leadership Network and Empowering Community Healthcare Outreach