Our People

Mouthpeace Instructors

Geoffrey Tumlin

• Founder and CEO of Mouthpeace Consulting LLC. President of On-Demand Leadership. Charter donor and Board Chair of Critical Skills Nonprofit.
• Ph.D. and M.A. in communication from UT Austin. B.S. from West Point.
• Faculty fellow at UT Austin’s RGK Center & Cátedras Laboris fellow at University of Monterrey, Mexico.
• Teaches and consults widely throughout North America; writing has appeared in journals, textbooks, and newspapers.
• Served as Assistant Director of Center for Ethical Leadership at UT Austin and infantry officer in Hawaii’s 25th Infantry Division.
• Dissertation title: Communicating negative feedback in performance appraisal interviews: An experimental study.

Meet Geoffrey:
Growing up, I loved going to the airport–but not to look at the planes. Back when you could wait at the gate for passengers, I used to love sitting in the terminal listening to people talk. Although technically I was eavesdropping, most people didn’t seem to mind and they would continue right along with their conversations. It was at the airport that I learned one of my first communication lessons: What people say to each other doesn’t always make sense, but that doesn’t stop them from talking.

I learned a second lesson at the airport as well: People talk in a dizzying assortment of communication styles. Although I was excited for each visitor my family received at the airport, each arrival brought a profoundly different house guest. My thoughtful grandmother was different from my exuberant uncle who was different again from an eccentric visiting cousin. I was going to have to learn to talk to each person differently.

Although the boy in the airport is a little bit older, I remain fascinated  by how people talk to each other. Our closest connections are our most cherished and the way we talk to people around us—at work and at home—constitute our life. We create our world through our communication.

Human communication is at once challenging and fulfilling, precious and fragile, and alive with possibility. My job is to help people improve their communication at work and at home, and I can’t think of a better job in the world for the boy who’s been practicing this career since he was scrutinizing conversations at the airport.

Amy Schmisseur

• Award-winning instructor at Mouthpeace Consulting.
• Ph.D. in communication from UT Austin.
• Formerly Professor at University of Kansas.
• M.A. from U. Cincinnati. B.A., with honors, from Ohio Univ.
• Won top teaching awards at UT Austin.
• Has repeatedly earned top honors for academic writing from the National Communication Association.
• Dissertation title: Beyond the client service interaction: The emotional labor of change implementers.

Meet Amy:
We’ve never met anyone like Amy here at Mouthpeace. In addition to being one of the nicest people on the planet, Amy also has extraordinary communication gifts. Amy comprehensively understands people and how people communicate. When you talk to Amy, you are likely to get a sense that she’s not only listening to you—she’s listening through you. Amy knows how to say the things you are only just starting to put into words. Amy can quickly help people improve their messages and clarify their meaning.

You can drop Amy into virtually any situation and the communication will improve. Naturally, we want some of that here at Mouthpeace so we begged her to hang her hat with us. We got lucky and she said yes. Amy is a superlative teacher with a world class understanding of human communication. We love having her on the team at Mouthpeace.

Jodi Lisa Ondrusek

• Director of Marketing for Mouthpeace Consulting.
• Ph.D. and M.A. in advertising from UT Austin. B.A. in marketing from UTSA.
• Worked for organizations of all shapes and sizes throughout United States in marketing and advertising.
• Extensive expertise in persuasive marketing pitches and viral marketing campaigns.
• Dissertation title: Navigating through the pitch landscape: An examination of clients, consultants, and advertising agencies during the pitch process.

Meet Jodi:
You would think that Jodi’s big brain would slow her down during the triathlons that she runs, but all of her significant brainpower doesn’t seem to impede her race times. When Jodi is not off running / swimming / biking, she is putting her extraordinary combination of real world and academic advertising knowledge to use on behalf of Mouthpeace Consulting.

Jodi’s scholarly research focuses on what happens during persuasive advertising pitches and how customers interact with novel informative presentations. Jodi’s corporate work focuses on applying the knowledge from her academic studies to create ads and marketing campaigns that work. Jodi is a fantastic combo of academic knowledge and street smarts. And she’s the fastest person on the Mouthpeace team.

Sean Lux

• Assistant Professor of Marketing & Assistant Director of Center for Entrepreneurship at USF in Tampa.
• Ph.D. in management from Florida State University. MBA from Univ. of South Florida.
• Serves as entrepreneurial advisor for numerous start-ups, and as a business advisor for established for-profit organizations.
• Actively involved in entrepreneurial and managerial research and writing.
• Dissertation title: Nonmarket effects on strategic fit and performance: An economic institutional change perspective.

Meet Sean:
Sean Lux is quite possibly the most laid-back person we have ever met here at Mouthpeace Consulting. When Sean isn’t helping someone create a company, commercialize an idea, or understand an important business concept, Sean Lux is probably out on his boat fishing. Whatever you are doing out there on the boat, keep at it Sean because it’s working.

Hector Diaz Saenz

• Associate Professor at Egade Business School in Monterrey, Mexico.
• Ph.D. in communication from UT Austin.
• M.S. in Administration, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.
• Former Director of Business Programs at the EGADE Business School, Monterrey.
• Dissertation title: How leaders influence cohesive and productive teams in organizations.

Meet Hector:
Hector is quite possibly the nicest person on the planet. At Mouthpeace, we think that Hector’s warmth, optimism, and generosity are part of what makes him such a great teacher. Hector also deeply understands human communication, and he knows how to connect with an audience in a way that facilitates meaningful learning. In a company filled with optimists, we at Mouthpeace look to Hector when we need a boost of sunshine.

Affiliate Instructor

Ethan Burris

• Associate Professor at McCombs School of Business at UT Austin.
• Ph.D. from Cornell.  B.A. from Washington Univ.
• Widely published in top management & psychology journals.
• Penned 2010 article for Harvard Business Review.
• Dissertation title: The politics of speaking out: Responses to voice in organizations.

Meet Ethan:
Ethan has some remarkable communication talents. He’s good with thorny issues, his messages are extremely well-organized, and he has the uncanny ability to make bad news seem tolerable. In light of these gifts, it is no surprise that Ethan is a leading scholar of employee and supervisor communication, the transmission of difficult organizational messages, and ways that managers can encourage straight talk in organizations.

While Ethan is all about straight talk at work, he does have something crooked at home. Specifically, Ethan is the proud owner of a snaggle-toothed bulldog named Blake who has a heart of gold and a mouthful of omni-directional teeth. When Ethan’s around, we keep an ear on what he’s saying, because it’s almost always worth listening to, and we keep an eye on the bulldog, because once Blake gets a hold of your shoes and starts working them over with his asymmetrical grill, you are going barefoot.

Mouthpeace Team

Rebecca Henley

• Director of Operations for Mouthpeace Consulting.
• B.A. in econ from UT Austin.
• Spent the last twelve years managing and working on the front lines in sales & marketing.
• Worked with Geoffrey Tumlin since 2002.

Meet Rebecca (in Geoffrey’s words):
I can remember the first time—which was also the last time—that I ignored Rebecca Henley’s advice.  It was November 2002 and we were developing an executive education class together. I wanted to name the class “Social Influence” which was the scientific term for the material, but Rebecca kept telling me that the title was too boring to draw a big audience. She suggested titles like “Getting what you want” or “Getting others to listen” but I insisted that the scientific term was the proper title, so we kept it.

Attendance was sparse—about half our usual turnout. Some of the students who came admitted that they attended in spite of a confusing title. I stopped ignoring Rebecca’s advice.

Almost ten years later, we rely heavily on Rebecca’s keen awareness of what people want and how we can best present Mouthpeace content to different customers. Rebecca has a great feel for what works, and what doesn’t and she won’t let me forget it. All of our products go through the mind of Rebecca Henley to be properly calibrated for audience interest and appeal.  If we offer it at Mouthpeace, Rebecca Henley has signed off on it.

Gregory Thomas-Tench

• Chief Media and Technology Consultant for Mouthpeace Consulting.
• Day job is as Founder and CEO of Redwerks, a Vancouver-based media and technology company.
• Redwerks specializes in high concept, accessible applications for corporations around the globe.

Meet Gregory Thomas-Tench:
To know Greg is to love Greg. He’s so innovative that he makes Alexander Graham Bell look like an underachiever and we are pretty certain that Greg has forgotten more about computers than most of us have ever known in the first place. If it’s on the web, Greg knows about it. If it’s not, he can get it there. Greg spends much of his time trying to improve the way that humans connect with technology and we constantly ask him how much longer before he figures out how to get our computers to take out the trash and walk the dog. Full speed ahead Greggie, the world wide web needs you and so do we.

Jeremy Stout

• Mouthpeace Consulting’s Curricula and Training Visual Design Officer.
• Worked for corporations of all sizes, from the smallest of start-ups to the largest of multinational organizations and his designs have won awards throughout the world.
• Associate Director of Graphic Design at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California.
• BFA from California College of the Arts.
• Jeremy’s work is on permanent display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Meet Jeremy Stout:
Jeremy Stout creates hard-working art. With an eye for design that is downright spooky and incredibly precise, and impressively exacting standards, Jeremy Stout will get your stuff looking right before you can say Pablo Picasso Punched a Poor Powerpoint Presentation. The Academy of Art University is lucky to have Jeremy teaching aspiring artists there and we are lucky to have him working with us at Mouthpeace Consulting.

Board of Advisors

Cindi Baldi

• Completing a Ph.D. in management at UT Austin.
• MBA and M.S. from UT Austin.  B.S. from UNC Wilmington.
• Actively involved in business research and teaching.
• Has owned small businesses in New England and the Southwestern United States.
• Dissertation in progress analyzing how customers come to positively identify with certain firms, and shun other firms.

 

Meet Cindi:
Cindi Baldi has a great head for business. Some of her earliest memories involve operating a cash register as a little girl in the family business and keeping a close eye what was coming in and going out of the till. With an entrepreneurial history that includes business dealings with motorcycle gangs, riverboat gamblers, and zoo animals, we’re not quite sure what to make of the fact that Cindi fits right in at Mouthpeace Consulting.

Cindi’s business savvy is unparalleled, her mind is razor sharp, and she knows how to feed and care for meat-eating animals. Ask her anything about business and she can probably give you a scientific answer as well as an example from her business history. Just remember that if you are asking her about jaguars, you will need to clarify whether you are talking about the car company or the animal.