Advanced Leadership Concepts

Advanced Leadership Concepts unlocks the science of leadership with powerful tools that transform teams.

We serve executive teams by using science to authentically level up the collective mindsets of everyone on the team. You cannot level up teams of leaders without leveling up the individual leaders along the way, but our focus as a company is on the functioning and performance of the entire leadership team. All leaders are people first and our business is all about people. Leveling up people is way more valuable for an organization when a team levels up together.

We produce content, programs and tools that help leaders evolve their executive leadership faster. 
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ALC was started by my partner as a language translations and leadership consulting company over two decades ago. With employees in three countries and many notable clients like Delta Airlines, Xerox, Owens Corning, Medco, Blue Cross, the US Army, Kaiser Permanente, and many others.

Chief Executive Officer (Co-CEO) and Founder

Executive Guidance, Marketing, Business Development, Operations and Customer Service

Executive Board Member

ITX Corp.

Professional Speaker with expertise at the cross section of technology, leadership, empathy and culture. Language is at the root of how we communicate and it is what separates the great leaders from the mediocre. My talks are rooted in academic research and my two plus decades of running successful businesses and building software products.

Board Member | Advisor | Of Council

Our teams at ITX help our clients move, touch, and inspire the world by transforming technology investments into software that connects to the humans that use it. We have been developing strategic technology assets for our clients since the beginning of the commercial internet. Notable clients that we have successfully delivered software to, from ideation to execution: NEC America, Xerox, Kodak Health Sciences, AT&T, Corning, E&Y, IBM, HP, Tech Target, Dictionary.com, Elsevier, SSRN.com, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Mass Mutual, Pittsburgh Steelers, Coinstar, Redbox, Paychex, and more than 1,000 others.

EVP, Managing Partner

University of Rochester - Simon Business School

My decades of executive experience leading businesses, consulting, start up mentoring, investing and coaching has lead to a role as an adjunct professor teaching MBA students at one of the country's leading business schools. 

I have been on the professional speaking circuit with business leaders worldwide and guest lecturing for over a decade. My goal is to leverage all of my experience in the business trenches to inspire the next generation of leaders through teaching both the hard and soft skills required to create innovative cultures.

Executive Professor

Harvard Extension School

My decades of executive experience leading businesses, consulting, start up mentoring, investing and coaching has lead to a role as a visiting professor, guest lecturing to students at one of the nation's leading business schools. 

I have been on the professional speaking circuit with business leaders worldwide and guest lecturing for over a decade. My goal is to leverage all of my experience in the business trenches to inspire the next generation of leaders through teaching both the hard and soft skills required to create innovative cultures.

Visiting Professor

Vistage Worldwide, Inc.

Trusted Advisor to CEO Groups, Speaker, and Consultant

Strategic Advisor

Blue Startups

Startup mentor for Blue Startups. Blue Startups is an extensive global network that provides a nexus of entrepreneurial activity in Hawai’i, and between Asia and North America. They have been named a Top 20 US Accelerator according to TechCrunch, raised over $120M in capital and have help incubate over 60 companies in Honolulu. They run the "East Meets West" annual conference for technology investors in Oahu.

Start Up Mentor | Advisor

Antiques& Uniques Estate Jewelry and Objets d'Art

We buy, curate, restore and sell antique and estate objets d'art, miniature paintings, daguerreotypes and jewelry. This humble, thriving enterprise started in local flea markets, helped me to pay my way through college and evolved into a healthy and fun family enterprise. >> Always Buying | Confidentiality guaranteed.

Curator | Historian | Proprietor

Techstars

Start up mentor for the Atlanta chapter of Techstars. Techstars is an American seed accelerator which, as of 2019, the company had accepted over 1,600 companies into its programs with a combined market capitalization of $18.2bn USD. Less than 1% of applicants are accepted.

Founder Institute

Startup Mentor for the New York City Chapter of The Founder Institute. FI is the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, with chapters across 185+ cities and Alumni that have built companies exceeding $20B in estimated value.

Start Up Mentor | Speaker

Launchpad

Startup Mentor for the Rochester, NY Chapter of The Launchpad. Launchpad is a well-respected network of active members building individual portfolios by investing both financial & human capital startups.

Since 2001, Launchpad is one of the most active angel network in the Northeast & one of the top three most active angel networks in the country in deal volume & dollars invested

When you tap into the creative potential of people, you are leading.

The purpose of leadership is to expand the spheres of caring and the spheres of influence of the people you surround yourself with so that creativity is maximized.

Impactful leaders create systems that ensure this is happening. 

My work helps you scale your leadership by sharing lessons from the trenches about how to use language, hold space, and foster environments that maximize clarity and optimize for innovation. "The Momentum Framework" is a collection of contextual models and language tools that form a system that creates this space. 

The result is >> MOMENTUM which can be measured through relationships and innovations.

My journey in innovation began with building software products at the ripe age of 11, programming on my 8-Bit Commodore Vic-20 in the 1980s. I never stopped. I studied aviation electronics working on F-14 Tomcats in the Navy, molecular genetics at the University of Rochester, and earned an MBA from the Simon School of Business in 2006, where I now teach and have won awards for the class that I developed. 

However, most of my experience has come from two and a half decades of working in the trenches with amazing teams building innovative software products that move, touch and inspire the world. ITX is a passionate group of 260+ inspired technologists, architects, and artists that produce magic every day for our clients. We are pioneering how software products are built and creating best practices that are forging the future of how technology interfaces with people.

With my partners at ITX and in other ventures, I have engineered the divestiture, acquisition, and mergers of over a dozen companies. Through CEO and leadership roundtables worldwide and a professorship at the University of Rochester, I have educated thousands of business leaders on innovation, culture, trust, empathy, and "The Momentum Framework." 

This work has led to many accolades such as the Vistage "New Advisor of the Year", "Top Advisor", "Top Rated Professor" and the Trust Across America "Top Thought Leader in Trust" awards.

Disconnect to Reconnect

There’s a special kind of clarity that only comes when you’re completely disconnected from your everyday reality.

For me, those moments often come on a dirt bike.

Helmet on. Engine humming. The world narrows to a single trail, a single decision, a single breath. A couple weeks ago, I rode from Bogotá to Cartagena with a group of close friends — all business owners, all used to living in high gear. 

Endless days of mud, mountains, rain, and raw beauty. No email. No Slack. No schedules. Just flow.

What I found on that trip was way more than a holiday adventure — it was pure presence. This kind of presence, it turns out, is the birthplace of creativity.

According to Self-Determination Theory, human motivation and creativity thrive when three needs are met:

Autonomy — feeling free to choose your path.
Competence — feeling challenged and capable.
Relatedness — feeling connected to others who share your journey.

This ride checked all three boxes - at an unparalleled scale.

Every mile demanded focus and skill. Every night ended with laughter, stories, and deep gratitude. 

Every day reminded me that freedom comes from being fully in the moment. It does not come from doing more. 

The paradox of creativity is that you can’t force it. You can’t brainstorm your way into brilliance when your nervous system is fried. You need moments that reset your mind. Moments where survival, joy, and curiosity converge into flow.

Here is to the incredible friends who shared those trails with me — thank you. There’s nothing quite like being miles from Wi-Fi, covered in dust, realizing that your best ideas are waiting for you on the other side of a throttle twist.

The lesson >> Sometimes, the fastest way to move your business forward
 is to disappear for a while — and remember who you are when the noise stops.

#Colombia #Creativity #MomentumForReal

Sean Flaherty

>> Leadership and the Art of Possibility | The Momentum Framework

Every group of humans from your church group and your sports team, to  non-profit and for-profit businesses, has the same ultimate strategic goal.

To maximize the breadth and depth of advocacy-oriented behaviors being produced in their context.

No matter what your group is trying to achieve, it’s people who produce better futures.

  -> It’s not your technology.
  -> It’s not your policies.
  -> It’s not your vision.

All those things matter, but they become powerfully activated when human beings choose to invest their time, energy, creativity, and emotional labor toward a shared purpose.

At the core, every leadership system should be thought of as a behavior-shaping system. So ask >> 

How is our mission statement orienting our people?

What kinds of human behaviors are we soliciting, reinforcing, and rewarding, intentionally or not?

When people feel connected, trusted, and seen, they act with agency and when that agency turns into volition, it becomes advocacy.

  >> They share ideas.
  >> They defend the mission.
  >> They bring others in.
  >> They co-create the next chapter.

That’s the highest form of value creation a group can achieve >> a connected network of 'advocates' who are invested in our creative, collective future.

Now, “Advocacy” might not be the perfect word.
In marketing, it’s often used to describe people who promote a brand. In legal context, it means something altogether different. 

But we’ve redefined it to mean something far deeper: 'Those who invest in our creative, collective future.'

That definition changes everything by expanding the game:

  >> from transactional to transformational.
  >> from short-term engagement to long-term belonging.
  >> from compliance to co-creation.

So, as leaders, the question we can ask ourselves is this:

👉 How am I designing the conditions for advocacy to emerge?

Because leadership is about cultivating ecosystems where people choose to invest in something bigger than themselves. And that’s where your better futures thrives.

I had the distinct honor of presenting this idea in a workshop format to a highly curious and deeply engaged team of leaders at Rapid Response Monitoring in #Syracuse, NY yesterday thanks to Bryan Bond and was blown away by their deep application of these ideas in their work.

Buckle up team >> Next month you get to hear about the science of accountability from Sarah Kalmeta!

#Leadership #Advocacy #Momentum #RelationshipLadder

🚀 Leaders who master the “Pivot” create and build momentum.

The best teams don’t chase every opportunity that presents itself. They pursue opportunities with clarity, surgical precision and focus. I call this the job of providing extreme clarity of VISION.

When everyone on the team knows exactly who they serve and what problems they uniquely solve >> they transform customers into advocates. They become hard on each other out when distractions present themselves.

This is alignment.

That combination of WHO WE SERVE x WHAT PROBLEMS WE SOLVE serves as the heartbeat of focus.

A proper pivot is never done in a panic. It is an intentional recalibration of that combination. It’s saying:

“We’re still building momentum… we’ve learned something and are now aiming it at a better target.”

When done well, a pivot sharpens focus and reduces dilution of energy. It re-aligns the team around the most meaningful measure of success: Advocacy behaviors.

Because your advocates are your most profitable customers in the aggregate >> not just in revenue, but in reputation, resilience, promotion, ideas, and reach.

👉 So before your next strategic shift, ask the team:

Are we pivoting toward greater advocacy?… or are we pivoting:

- away from discomfort
- to appease the squeaky wheel
- to serve the HPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)
- to herd the RHNOs (Realy High value New Opportunities)

I had the great honor of speaking to a group of about 60 intensely curious business leaders yesterday at the Marlin Equity Partners Leadership Summit hosted by Bain & Company in #NewYorkCity and was blown away by their engagement. Thank you James Markarian for trusting me with all those brilliant minds. 

#Vision #Momentum #TrustLoyaltyAdvocacy #Pivoting

Leading software products is hard. 

It is also one of the most rewarding, and challenging, jobs on the planet.

In the ever-evolving landscape of tech, tools change daily, security threats are relentless, and customer expectations never stop rising. All of these external pressures multiply the complexity of leading the humans who build the products.

From team dynamics to organizational influence, the pace of change makes it harder than ever to lead effectively. Product leaders today must guide teams through constant uncertainty, empower them to innovate, and help them navigate the seismic shifts caused by AI and emerging technologies.

That’s why Leading the Product (LTP) in Sydney and Melbourne is so powerful. 

It is a world-class experience designed for senior product leaders who are ready to level up their leadership, connect deeply, and expand their impact.

🚀 Leading the Product is a movement for the APAC market.

Their leadership forum is a hands on, immersive forum that will challenge how you think and lead. We will provide tools and frameworks that will help you drive real momentum in your organization.

You will have conversations with leaders who’ve been in the trenches and know what it takes to thrive amid disruption.

I go to a lot of conferences. Trust me when I tell you that this production is world-class. The venues are unforgettable. The community? Unmatched.

If you’re serious about growing as a leader and shaping the future of product — LTP is where you want to be. And...it is well worth travelling for 🌏

I'm honored to have been selected to come back and lead half-day workshops in #Melbourne and #Sydney again in May, 2026. Link in comments.

#ProductLeadership #LTP26 #TechLeadership #AI #Innovation #LeadershipDevelopment

Our inability to see and name dysfunction is one of the greatest barriers to unlocking innovation.

The phrase 'Name it to tame it' was coined by Dr. Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist from UCLA, who coined it while studying how children regulate emotions. The science is simple but profound: when you can name what you’re feeling, you create just enough distance from it to tame it.

That idea applies far beyond parenting and children.

In organizations, dysfunction thrives in the shadows. When we can’t (or won’t) see it. Left unnamed, dysfunctional behaviors become habits. They metastasize. But the moment a leader or team calls out what is going on, something powerful happens: the emotion loses its grip, the unspoken gets surfaced, and the team’s creativity has room to breathe again.

It is more than spotting what’s broken. It is about spotting behaviors on different spectrums and over time horizons and how they are impacting the outcomes you want. 

In psychology, reframing is the art of changing the lens through which we see a situation. By shifting perspective, we open up new interpretations, and with them, new possibilities abound.

“Name it to tame it” is a form of reframing. When you name your frustration, your fear, or the subtle dysfunction in your culture, you’ve already changed its power over you. Instead of being trapped inside it and being a victim to it, you’re observing it. And from there, you can lead through it.

Great leaders drive results. One of the ways they do this is by reframing reality in ways that allow their teams to move forward with clarity, creativity, and trust.

So the next time you feel stuck, frustrated, or sense dysfunction in your team, start simple. Name it. You might be surprised how quickly that single act of acknowledgment begins to tame it.

Do you have any examples to share with me? Put them in the comments below.

#Leadership #Reframing #OrganizationalPsychology

A simple, extremely powerful leadership tool a CEO can wield is a shared mantra that guides behavior.

“Connection Before Content”

Can be that mantra. It reminds everyone, from the boardroom to front line, that before we talk strategy, data, or deliverables, we must connect as humans.

This is a mantra that reframes leadership from being about control to being about curiosity, care, and connection.

It can be the foundation for customer centricity because it builds the relational intelligence necessary to listen deeply to everyone >> to customers, to employees, and to the human signals in the system.

A culture that connects before it communicates, 
   listens before it lectures, 
      and relates before it reacts

will always out-innovate one that doesn’t.

Honored to be sharing some knowledge today with Marlin Equity Partners in #NewYorkCity 

#Leadership #Creativity #Innovation

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