The Sense Makers
The Sense Makers team provides successful coaching services, creative business solution facilitation, project management, communication training workshops and inspirational keynotes to reinforce organizational direction.
Chris Dennis MBA, CEC
Chris is a rare combination of keynote speaker, executive facilitator and coach as well as a street-smart leader. As someone who has been through the rise (and fall) of large corporate launches, Chris knows first-hand what it means to be a successful leader; especially in times of incredible uncertainty. He has an uncanny ability to cut to the heart of problems, coach leaders to get clarity on their feasible options and enable them to take decisive action.
Chris is an accountant, holds an executive MBA from Brunel University and is a Royal Roads Certified Executive Coach.
He is an Appreciative Inquiry facilitator and a certified practitioner of the Cognitive Edge approach for uncovering complex emerging business patterns. In keynotes he presents anecdotes gained from years on the front-line and balances stories with humour and a passion for maximizing leader effectiveness.
Jennifer Holden
M.Ed., Ed.D, CEC
Jennifer Holden is a senior human resources and organizational development consultant with extensive and varied public, private and not-for-profit sector experience. In addition to providing leadership to most aspects of human resources and labour relations management, Jennifer has led and shared the leadership of bargaining union-management collective agreements within the public sector. Jennifer’s expertise and experience include coaching at the executive and team level, social network analysis, corporate social responsibility, action based learning, and employee engagement.
In 2000, Jennifer completed the degree of Doctor of Education at the University of British Columbia with research culminating in a thesis describing the then emerging area of corporate social responsibility and triple-bottom line accounting. Prior to this, Jennifer completed a Master of Education at Simon Fraser University. She has studied in the area of applied behavioural sciences at the Leadership Institute of Seattle (Bastyr University) and personnel management at the BC Institute of Technology. Most recently, Jennifer has completed the Royal Roads University program in Executive Coaching with the International Coach Federation (ICF) designation of Certified Executive Coach.
Dr. Holden has completed studies in the area of social network analysis with Dr. Karen Stephenson and is licensed to use Netform™, a network analysis tool that enables the mapping and analysis of formal and informal networks in organizations. Jennifer is also qualified to facilitate “Corporate Circles™, a model designed to reduce and resolve toxic work environments via communication, conflict reduction and coaching.