The Care and Feeding of Focal Jobs

Eric Lesser is the Research Director with IBM's Institute for Business Value, where he is responsible for a global team of over 50 professionals that drive IBM's research and thought leadership on strategic business issues. Previously, as Associate Partner Mr. Lesser was responsible for global research and thought leadership on workforce effectiveness and human capital issues, including workforce and talent management, knowledge management and collaboration, learning and development and the future of the HR organization. Mr. Lesser also led the Knowledge and Organizational Performance Forum, an IBM-sponsored consortium focused on knowledge and human capital issues. In this role, Mr. Lesser managed multi-client studies on knowledge strategy, communities of practice, knowledge retention and customer knowledge issues. As a consultant, he has worked with clients in the financial services, legal, technology and government sectors on a number of knowledge and organization change issues.Mr. Lesser speaks frequently on the topics of knowledge, collaboration and human capital in organizations and has most recently edited (with Laurence Prusak) Creating Value with Knowledge: Insights from the IBM Institute for Business Value, published by Oxford University Press. He has also edited Knowledge and Social Capital and co-edited Knowledge and Communities, both published by Butterworth-Heinemann in 2000. Mr. Lesser has also written numerous articles, including:

• "Time Well Spent: Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of the Maturing Workforce" in International Human Resources Information Management Journal (March/April, 2006)
• "HR Challenges of Back Office and Customer Care Centers in Emerging Economies" in the International Human Resources Information Management Journal (March/April, 2005)
• "Knowledge and the Supply Chain" Inside Supply Management (April, 2005)
• "Nurturing Interpersonal Trust in Knowledge-Sharing Networks" in The Academy of Management Executive (November, 2003)
• "What Are Your Customers Saying?" in Marketing Management (November/December 2002.)
• "Preserving Knowledge in an Uncertain World" in the Sloan Management Review (Fall, 2001)
• "Communities of Practice and Organizational Performance" in the IBM Systems Journal (Winter, 2001)
• "Using Communities of Practice to Manage Intellectual Capital" in the Ivey Business Journal (March/ April 2001)
• "Managing Customer Knowledge" in the Journal of Business Strategy (Nov/Dec, 2000)
• "Using Organizational Knowledge to Redesign Work" in Knowledge Management Review (May/June, 1998).

He has been quoted in a number of publications including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Australian Financial Review, Washington Business Journal, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Business Chronicle, Knowledge Management, Government Executive, Training, Knowledge Management Review and Computing (UK).Prior to joining IBM, Mr. Lesser was a consultant with Mercer Consulting Group, where he worked for Mercer Management Consulting and William M. Mercer's Health Care Provider Consulting practice. While at Mercer, he served as a project manager and lead consultant on a number of assignments, including reengineering, new product development, organization strategy and design, and change management efforts. Prior to joining Mercer, Mr. Lesser worked as a consultant for Andersen Consulting in its Change Management practiceMr. Lesser received his MBA from Emory University, where he was a Robert W. Woodruff Fellow. He graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University in Economics. Mr. Lesser has also studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Beta Gamma Sigma.

Dr. Laura Ann Preston is the Director for Management Development at Kelly Services, Inc. In this role, she is responsible for creating and executing a global development strategy for Kelly's People Managers. Dr. Preston also provides leadership development support for executive assessment and succession planning. Prior to joining Kelly Services, Dr. Preston worked as a Consultant for Personnel Decisions International where she provided talent management, assessment, coaching, and development services to Fortune 500 clients. Additionally, she worked in the Executive and Management Development group at Bank of America as a Product Manager for the enterprise 360 feedback process, several high-potential programs and executive on-boarding.Dr. Preston received both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Central Michigan University, where she now serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching courses on the principles of Industrial/Organizational and Social Psychology. She has presented research on multi-source feedback, high-potential development, organizational restructuring/downsizing, and Six Sigma. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and the Michigan Association of Industrial/Organizational Psychologists.

As leader of the Distribution Sector's HCM practice, Mr. Brousseau is responsible for providing services supporting our client's achieve excellence by implementing people solutions that allow organizations to align HR capabilities and learning to support workforce enablement. His experience has focused on supporting are client's strategic requirements in the following key dimensions:HR Strategy and Transformation: Align HR strategy, practices and capabilities that enable the organization for the future.