Listen with purpose
Ask a question that reveals a missing perspective. Show how the answer affects the next decision.
Changemaker & Leadership Microcourses · Teaching proposal
Changemaker Leadershipin Practice
Influence, empathy & collaborative action.
Help students turn a commitment to change into partnerships, workable plans, and action that remains accountable to the people affected.
An independent teaching proposal prepared for consideration by UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Available for adaptation to established courses.
- UC Berkeley
- Guest instruction, mentoring & venture judging
- 20 years
- Advising women technology founders through Astia
- 20 hours weekly
- On-site culture coach hired for employee development
- M.A. in Education
- Instructional technologies & learning design
Practice behind the teaching
Make time to develop people.
As a CEO, I hired an on-site culture coach for 20 hours per week across three visits, focused on career development, conflict resolution, and team building.
That investment, alongside 20 years advising women technology CEOs, informs my teaching approach: provide a useful framework, make room to practice, offer specific feedback, and try again.
My contribution is practical leadership education. Public-health cases and adaptations would be developed with faculty guidance, without presenting my business experience as clinical or public-health research expertise.
Work through disagreement
Explain the evidence and the tradeoff without assuming that agreement can remove every resource or policy barrier.
Make action accountable
Name an action, an owner, a review date, and what would lead the team to change its plan.
Principal teaching resource
The Conscious Leader
Practical leadership, translated into work students can do.
Selected passages support discussion of empathy, psychological safety, communication, power, and responsibility. Students would test the ideas against the case, not simply agree with the author.
- Communication and empathy
- Practice a difficult conversation; record the question, answer, and response.
- Ethics and stakeholder leadership
- Examine who decides, who benefits, and whose concerns have not been heard.
- Leading change
- Build a feasible plan with shared responsibilities and an opportunity to revise.
Pitch Perfect
Partnership conversations, audience-aware communication, difficult questions, and cross-cultural dialogue.
The Growth Code
Feasible growth, evidence, and capital discipline. Expansion is a decision to examine, not an automatic measure of success.
Related resources
The AI Threshold series supports discussion of responsible AI and human judgment. The Rocket-Ship Team Lists supplies practical exercises in hiring, conflict, and team development.
Books are practitioner resources paired with independent readings. Students can question their assumptions and defend alternatives. Explore the books and resources.
Proposed one-unit, eight-week microcourse
Influence, Empathy & Collaborative Action
Four connected stages: understand purpose and perspectives; practice influence and partnership; address disagreement and constraints; revise and hand off.
1Clarify purpose and the problem
Separate an intended change from evidence that it has occurred.
Practice: Rewrite a broad mission as a decision and name what is still unknown.
Student work: A purpose statement and evidence questions.
Reading focus: The Conscious Leader: strategic vision; The Growth Code: evidence and assumptions.
2Notice power and missing voices
Identify who defines the problem, allocates resources, can refuse, and bears the costs.
Practice: Map who has been heard and design a feasible, accessible listening approach.
Student work: A stakeholder-listening plan.
Reading focus: The Conscious Leader: ethics and stakeholder leadership.
3Influence without overstating
Explain a shared purpose while leaving room for informed disagreement.
Practice: Give a short proposal, ask what the listener needs, and revise the explanation.
Student work: A partnership conversation draft.
Reading focus: Pitch Perfect: partnerships and difficult questions.
4Build a workable partnership
Clarify each partner’s authority, contribution, limits, and next decision.
Practice: Negotiate a small joint step with approval conditions rather than a vague promise.
Student work: A revised partnership dialogue.
Reading focus: Pitch Perfect: the partnership pitch; Berkeley Ombuds negotiation guidance.
5Work through disagreement
Distinguish an ordinary conflict from a resource limit or a concern needing formal support.
Practice: Practice a missed-handoff conversation and agree on responsibilities.
Student work: A team agreement.
Reading focus: The Conscious Leader: communication and psychological safety.
6Test the expansion decision
Use evidence, listening, and feasibility in the same conversation.
Practice: Run Before We Expand in five rotating roles, then revise individually.
Student work: An implementation-brief draft and feedback record.
Reading focus: The supplied fictional case and role cards.
7Make accountability practical
Name a next action, owner, review date, and what would change the plan.
Practice: Challenge the brief against a staffing, access, or approval constraint.
Student work: A revised implementation brief.
Reading focus: The Conscious Leader: change leadership and accountability.
8Learn, revise, and hand off
Explain what changed after feedback and what remains uncertain.
Practice: Prepare a concise handoff and an individual reflection across the portfolio.
Student work: Completed portfolio pieces and a separate final reflection.
Reading focus: Selected book excerpts paired with independent readings.
These modules are an independent proposal, not an approved syllabus. The calendar, contact time, readings, workload, and assessment would be agreed with the program. Short exercises feed one compact portfolio rather than eight unrelated major assignments.
Original fictional sample class · 90 minutes
Before We Expand
A Community Partnership Decision
A funder wants rapid expansion. Community participants raise access concerns. Staff question capacity. Students must lead a useful conversation without inventing agreement, resources, or proof of impact.
- PrepareCheck the facts, constraints, and missing voices.
- PracticeLead, listen, and receive observable feedback.
- ReviseMake the next action and approval conditions clear.
Case brief, evidence & decision options
The decision
Bridgewell Connect is a fictional nonprofit offering nonclinical information sessions about local health and community resources. An eight-week pilot at one site reached 60 unique adults. A voluntary follow-up survey received 18 responses; 12 respondents reported feeling clearer about a next step. There was no baseline survey or comparison group. No completed referrals, improved service access, or health outcomes have been measured.
A funder is considering a grant of up to $24,000 for the next eight weeks and prefers expansion to three sites. The grant is not signed, no money has arrived, and the funder representative cannot approve changed terms alone. The nonprofit’s board must authorize the final plan.
Operations has 160 coordinator hours available across those eight weeks. A community liaison has heard requests about translation, session times, and transport from three residents. These comments identify questions to investigate; they are not a representative survey or consent from everyone affected.
| Option | Total cost | Coordinator time | Access support included |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: Three sites | $24,000 | 216 hours | $1,000 |
| B: Two sites | $22,000 | 152 hours | $4,000 |
| C: One site + redesign | $12,000 | 96 hours | $3,000 |
All options cover the same next eight weeks. Costs are total program estimates, including the listed access-support budgets and coordinator costs; do not add those budgets again. Hours are coordinator time, not total organization staffing. Any unused grant allowance is not automatically unrestricted cash. Options B and C require the funder to approve a different scope. No option has yet been authorized.
What must be decided?
Recommend expansion with conditions, redesign, or delay. Identify whose input could change the decision and what must be agreed before the organization commits. Do not treat an unsigned grant as money available to spend.
Learning objectives
- Distinguish reported feedback, participation, and demonstrated outcomes.
- Ask a useful question and show how the answer affects a recommendation.
- Identify who controls a decision, whose voice is missing, and how participation can be broadened.
- Compare a plan with cash, staff capacity, and approval constraints, then assign a next action and review date.
Original fictional teaching case. All organizations, people, figures, statements, and outcomes are invented. This is not a report of a client engagement, a public-health intervention, or measured student results.
Five roles & practice rotations
All participants share the same facts. There is no hidden information or later surprise. Describe the role’s interests, not a stereotype, and identify any additional suggestion as a proposal rather than a known fact.
Project lead
Facilitate the conversation and recommend a plan to the board. Ask each participant about a constraint, state a tradeoff, and identify what still requires agreement. You cannot sign the grant or assume that silence means consent.
Funder representative
You value timely delivery and initially prefer three sites. You can take an alternative to your grants committee, but cannot promise approval or money. Ask what a smaller plan would test and what evidence would justify expansion.
Community liaison
You spoke with three residents about translation, timing, and transport. Do not claim to represent every resident. Ask who has not been heard, how they can participate, and how their input could change the plan.
Operations coordinator
The available capacity is 160 coordinator hours over eight weeks. Explain the staffing implications of each option. Do not invent volunteer labor, extra hours, or a cost-free workaround. Ask who owns scheduling, access support, and follow-up.
Observer
Record one question in the project lead’s words, the answer, and what the lead did with it. Note one evidence limit and one next action. Give specific feedback about behavior, not personality. You are not the grader.
Equal practice
Groups of five run five eight-minute rotations. Everyone leads once and observes once. Each round has four minutes of conversation, two of observer feedback, and two to rotate. Unresolved disagreement can remain; do not manufacture consensus.
Assignment & observer feedback record
Individual work before and after practice
Before class: Read the student packet. There is no advance written response. At minutes 0–8, write up to 100 words and two clarifying questions.
Within 48 hours: Submit an implementation brief of up to 300 words, a reflection of up to 100 words, and the observation record from your turn as project lead. Include the recommendation, evidence limits, staffing and funding checks, missing voices, an action, owner, and review date, plus one objection you addressed.
Explain one change after feedback, or why your initial choice remains defensible. Group practice supplies feedback; it is not a shared grade.
Observer feedback record
Project lead, observer, and round:
Question asked:
Answer received:
How the project lead used the answer:
Evidence limit kept visible:
Next action, owner, and review date:
One strength and one suggested revision:
The student PDF has this printable record. The observer records behavior rather than assigning a grade.
90-minute instructor plan
A 90-minute demonstration
| Minutes | Activity | Instructor move |
|---|---|---|
| 0–8 | Initial position | Each student writes up to 100 words and two clarifying questions in class. No initial written submission is required before class. |
| 8–18 | Evidence and feasibility | Pairs check the survey denominator, compare hours with the 160-hour limit, and identify which approvals remain unresolved. |
| 18–24 | Prepare roles | Form groups of five. All roles share the same facts. Choose questions; do not invent additional case facts. |
| 24–64 | Five practice rotations | Each eight-minute round uses four minutes of conversation, two of observer feedback, and two to rotate. Every student takes each role once. |
| 64–80 | Individual revision | Draft an implementation brief with a condition, action, owner, and review date. Address an objection and identify one change after listening. |
| 80–90 | Debrief and exit ticket | Compare contrasting recommendations. Ask which constraint remains and what evidence would change the decision. Final work is due within 48 hours. |
8 + 10 + 6 + 40 + 16 + 10 = 90 minutes. The demonstration may span meetings if the approved contact schedule requires it. For a large class, monitor selected groups and collect an individual exit ticket from every student. An agreed written-dialogue alternative uses the same evidence and criteria.
Individual assessment rubric
Grade reasoning, not agreement.
Use the individual revised brief, reflection, and interaction record. Verify unclear peer notes; peer feedback does not determine a student’s grade. Do not grade confidence, accent, speaking speed, or identity.
Evidence accuracy · 20%
Excellent (4): Uses the correct sample and denominator; separates feedback from service access or health outcomes and identifies funding uncertainty.
Competent (3): Reports the central facts accurately but leaves one important evidence limit unclear.
Inquiry and responsiveness · 25%
Excellent (4): Asks a relevant question, uses the reply, and records how the recommendation changes or why it remains defensible.
Competent (3): Asks a useful question but only partly uses the reply.
Power and participation · 20%
Excellent (4): Names decision authority, missing voices, and a feasible way for affected people to influence the next decision without treating one liaison as everyone’s voice.
Competent (3): Recognizes competing interests but participation or decision rights need more detail.
Feasibility and accountability · 25%
Excellent (4): Addresses staff hours, funding terms, access support, an action owner, and a review point; states unresolved approvals as conditions.
Competent (3): Proposes a reasonable next step but leaves one material resource or approval condition unresolved.
Revision and reflection · 10%
Excellent (4): Explains a specific revision after feedback, or a reasoned decision not to change, using the interaction record.
Competent (3): Identifies feedback and a plausible response with limited explanation.
Score 0–4: absent (0), unsupported or materially flawed (1), partly meets competent (2), competent (3), excellent (4). Sum score ÷ 4 × weight for a total out of 100. Feedback names one supported strength and one priority revision.
Illustrative response & instructor checks
Instructor checks
- 18 ÷ 60 = 30% survey response. 12 ÷ 18 = 66.7% of respondents reported a clearer next step, not 66.7% of all attendees. The 12 reports equal 20% of attendees, but nonresponse is not a negative response.
- The survey is voluntary and has no comparison or baseline. Reported clarity does not establish completed referrals, improved access, or a causal health benefit.
- Option A exceeds available coordinator time by 56 hours (216 − 160). Option B leaves eight hours; option C leaves 64 hours. A small remaining buffer is not proof of delivery resilience.
- All stated cash estimates fit within the $24,000 ceiling, but the grant is unsigned. B and C need revised terms; A still lacks staffing. Access-support costs are already included. No option is an unconditional ready-to-launch plan.
- Budgets and hours are planning assumptions, not predictions of impact. Do not infer that the higher access-support budget automatically solves the residents’ concerns.
One defensible implementation brief
Instructor-created illustration, not actual student work or the only acceptable answer.
I recommend a conditional two-site test, not an immediate launch. Its $22,000 estimate and 152 coordinator hours fit the stated limits, but eight spare hours provide little contingency. Operations should confirm the schedule and access-support plan. The liaison’s three conversations identify issues, not community-wide approval. Within seven days, the project lead should arrange accessible ways for other residents to comment and document how that input changes the proposal. The funder representative should seek written approval for the revised scope before the board authorizes spending. Pilot feedback is encouraging: 12 of 18 respondents felt clearer about a next step. It does not establish improved access or health outcomes. At the week-four review, the coordinator should report delivery, unresolved access concerns, and referral-follow-up information gathered with permission. The board can then continue, redesign, or pause.
Redesign or delay may also be justified. A three-site recommendation must resolve the staffing shortfall with a costed, approved plan. The point is not to pick the instructor’s preferred option.
An observable example of listening
Project lead: Who has not yet been able to comment on the proposed sessions?
Community liaison: I have only spoken with three residents. I do not know whether the proposed times work for people who have not attended.
Project lead: Then we should not call these arrangements community-approved. Before the board decides, let’s offer a translated, low-burden way to comment and check the proposed times with people beyond the pilot group.
Annotation: The question exposes a gap, the reply limits the scope of representation, and the response changes the approval process. This supports inquiry and participation, but does not replace the separate checks on evidence, capacity, funding, and accountability.
This sample is an independent teaching demonstration. It is not a case about the instructor’s company, culture coach, fund, or a measured public-health outcome. Distribute the student packet separately in an actual class.
Teaching approach
Evidence, empathy, and practice.
My M.A. in Education informs how I connect objectives, learning activities, and assessment. Students would prepare, rehearse, receive specific feedback, and revise.
- Identify a missing perspective. Distinguish a question to investigate from an assumption about others.
- Ask and use the answer. Show what changed after listening, or why the original view remains defensible.
- Explain a tradeoff. Keep limits on evidence and resources visible.
- Agree on responsibilities. Name who can act, approve, and review.
Improve the teaching, too.
Exit tickets, a midpoint feedback check, and colleague observation would help me adjust pacing and revisit misunderstandings before final assessment. Office hours and specific feedback give students a route to improvement.
Proposed workload & assessment
One compact action portfolio
Stakeholder-listening plan · 20%
Partnership dialogue · 20%
Team agreement · 15%
Implementation brief · 30%
Final integrative reflection · 15%
These are proposed course weights. Short drafts receive feedback without separate grades; completed pieces are graded once. The final reflection is assessed for integration, not for rescoring the same brief. The Before We Expand brief becomes the implementation component, not an additional major assignment.
The workload, reading volume, and final calendar would be agreed with program faculty. The 90-minute sample does not imply 90 minutes of required contact every week.
Participation, access & student support
Provide accessible text, prompts, and key terms in advance. Begin with quiet writing and rotate roles. An equivalent written dialogue would meet the same learning goals and criteria where appropriate.
No student needs professional connections or must reveal private workplace or health information. No one is expected to represent an entire community or identity group. Remote delivery would use captioned materials, written instructions, and structured small-group practice.
Distinguish communication skills from concerns requiring organizational action or formal support. Community participation needs a real opportunity to affect a decision, not a simulated claim of consent.
Independent inquiry & information protection
My books would be resources to examine, not conclusions students must adopt. Pair them with independent readings and allow evidence-based alternatives.
Initial judgments are independent unless the assignment permits assistance. Any allowed AI help must be disclosed, verified, and explainable. No confidential student, community, or company information belongs in an unapproved tool.
Live partner projects would require an agreed scope, appropriate permissions, and faculty guidance. The supplied fictional case requires neither private data nor a guest partner.
Program alignment & independent readings
Program alignment: Berkeley’s Changemakers page describes one-unit, eight-week microcourses. This proposal focuses on practical leadership and collaborative action; it is not Berkeley’s official syllabus.
Berkeley Public Health Changemakers · Lecturer pool JPF05543
Communication and conflict: Berkeley Ombuds: Tips, Tools & Techniques. Compare selected guidance with the choices available in the case.
Learning design: Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning: Course-level learning objectives. Connect learning goals with observable work and assessment.
Public program details checked October 18, 2026. Further public-health readings would be selected with faculty guidance. Linked institutions are sources, not endorsers.
About the instructor
A practitioner’s experience, an educator’s approach.
I founded MsMONEY, a financial services and technology company empowering women and families through an online marketplace for banking, lending, insurance, and investment products and services, supported by financial education.
I also advised women founders through Astia for 20 years and serve as cofounder and Managing Director of OM Impact Fund, evaluating ventures in health, education, climate, inclusion, and financial wellbeing.
Teaching, leadership & continuing education
UC Berkeley SCET · August 2026: Guest instructor in team-building and leadership for a 120-person bootcamp cohort, including 40 international participants from 15 countries; mentor and venture judge. Earlier Haas engagement included startup judging and mentoring.
FloripaTech · 2011–2013: Coached 50 engineers in Brazil using recorded presentations, individualized feedback, and repeated practice.
MsMONEY.com Inc. · 1999–2011: Hired 100 employees and contractors in the first year and raised $2.2 million in angel capital. Established Wells Fargo and Citibank partnerships; led a Wells Fargo website redesign and financial education center. Generated over $1 million in consulting fees. Recruited 30 finance writers who produced 1,000+ finance and career articles.
Astia · 2001–2021: Advised women technology CEOs for 20 years. Advisory-board service: 2002–2012.
ChroniFI · 2022–2024: Fractional COO/CMO for the first seven months, then strategic advisor. Responsibilities included hiring, staff management, and staff and CEO coaching. ChroniFI was acquired by Acorns in 2024.
M.A. in Education: Instructional technologies, adult learning, and curriculum design.
Continuing education: Wharton Executive Education (2022) and MIT Professional Education (2023).
Professional feedback
“She has a knack for distilling complex situations down to their essence to achieve clarity and progress.”
Ben Miller, founder of ChroniFI
Professional recommendation, July 2023; not a student evaluation.