transformation management and facilitation
Ethics, Leadership, and Emerging Technologies
Lisa is a seasoned strategist, educator, and policy innovator with over two decades of experience helping mission-driven organizations navigate change with integrity, resilience, and purpose.
She is the founder of the Institute for Inner Economy, a think tank dedicated to embedding ethical leadership and systems thinking into governance, diplomacy, and organizational development.
Lisa's work sits at the intersection of public service, social innovation, and values-based transformation. As a former elected official in Marina, California, Lisa helped shape policy through a lens of equity and inclusion, serving on regional planning and housing boards. She brings a rare blend of practical civic experience and holistic insight to her consulting work—particularly valuable to organizations seeking meaningful, sustainable impact in their communities.
At the University of California, Santa Cruz, Dr. Berkley created the Resiliency Program at Crown College and teaches courses in applied ethics, leadership, and emerging technologies. She also founded UCSC's Center for Applied Values and Ethics in Advancing Technologies, where she works on aligning innovation with human-centered design and policy accountability.
Dr. Berkley's academic research is grounded in real-world application. Her Ph.D. work focused on integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into local governance. Her dissertation, "The Role of Compassionate Cities, Healthy Cities, and UN Sustainable Development Goals in City Leadership and Planning", explored how municipal leaders can use holistic city frameworks to foster inclusive, resilient communities. She continues to help organizations localize global sustainability goals in ways that support people, planet, and profit.
She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Leadership and Change, an M.A. in International Policy (Counterterrorism and Transitional Justice), and a B.A. in Environmental Science and Economics.
Lisa is also co-editor of "Leadership at the Spiritual Edge: Emerging and Non-Western Concepts of Leadership and Spirituality" (Routledge, 2024) and a contributing author to "Women and Leadership Around the World."
Whether advising a nonprofit, guiding a Benefit LLC, or facilitating strategic planning for a growing B-Corp, Lisa brings clarity, compassion, and systems fluency to the work of transformation.
Science and Technology Strategist
As our Science and Technology Strategist, with a deep commitment to both scientific rigor and long-range planning for technical resilience, Matt keeps us on track so we don't fall behind or get too far ahead of ourselves.
An accomplished biophysicist and entrepreneur, Matt is the founder and CEO of ThermoCap Labs, a bio-tech start-up with Small Business Innovation Research funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation developing novel calorimetric instruments and tools.
Matt has a remarkable talent for applying rigorous technical and scientific practices to business process management and digital transformation.
With his unique combination of entrepreneurial business experience and distinctive math, science, and information technologies expertise, Matt’s on board to skillfully chart our course through turbulence, uncertainty and complexity, landing on elegant solutions with measurable results.
We rely on Matt’s deep knowledge of emerging technologies to ensure that, in the face of accelerating change, we stay ahead of the curve.
We also appreciate Matt’s playfulness. He works with a happily collaborative style. A style that significantly strengthens our ability to deliver results across diverse projects, cultivating deeply rewarding cross-sector partnerships, creating enduring value - not the least them being true friendship.
With years of experience at the intersection of community development, civic engagement and digital innovation, Doug brings a rare blend of high-level technical fluency and grassroots organizing savvy to every engagement.
His background spans software product management, software development, marketing, and organizational leadership across sectors, public and private—from early work with operating systems, enterprise communications systems and cloud computing to executive leadership in the performing arts and public-interest campaigns. He’s helped nonprofits, advocacy groups, and political movements adopt digital tools that amplify their reach, clarify their message, and deepen their community relationships.
Doug’s work has long focused on aligning emerging technologies with ethical practice and public benefit. As a NationBuilder strategist and web operations consultant, for example, he supported various local, State and national political candidates and causes, managing CRM systems, email ops, volunteer mobilization, and digital campaign infrastructure. As an Emergency Preparedness Committee Chair in Portland, he’s currently leading the development of an emergency plan for a community located within a high-risk seismic and petrochemical corridor—demonstrating his ability to move from code to community action.
Doug brings lived expertise in collaboration, resilience, and reinvention to PPLZ. He has served as the executive director for a world-class chamber music society, the business manager of a symphony orchestra in crisis, a strategic planner, a product manager with a portfolio of networking and communications systems software, a technical writer, trainer, and facilitator, a developer of transformational transfers of information to support the planning, design, deployment, and maintenance of enterprise-grade Internet technologies world-wide.
Doug's primary focus these days is on AI application development and LLM training for urban neighborhood resiliency and AI-assisted emergency preparedness planning for individuals, famlies, and diverse micro-commnities. If you share these interests, feel free to contact him. He's always open to meaningful, creative conversation.
Founding Partner
"The best time to sing a song is when we need it most." — Ella Jenkins