Who We Are

RON SCHULTZ Member of the Board, Executive Director Ron Schultz is a Founding Director of the Center for Social Profit Leadership – part of the Legacy XXI Institute. He was the founding executive director of Volunteers of America, Los Angeles’ Social Entrepreneur Incubator established to identify and support social entrepreneurs in the poorest of the poor communities in Los Angeles. In this capacity, Mr. Schultz developed the strategies and procedures for selection, support and identification of social entrepreneurs, which included the creation of a format for continuing education, ongoing consulting, and financial assistance.

He started an ongoing quarterly conference call called Social Thinking/Social Enterprise to support social enterprise outside the boundaries of VOALA. He was then asked to direct VOALA’s own social enterprise operations and develop an overall social enterprise initiative. This plan would establish a new model for social enterprise with VOALA as the parent operating company and incorporate the Social Entrepreneur Incubator as the research and development arm for future VOALA social enterprises. Mr. Schultz is the President of Red Tiger and Associates Consulting – a consulting firm specializing in entrepreneurial activity, innovation, enterprise and community development, and change leadership. RTA works with entrepreneurial people who lead and are accountable for the development and performance of their enterprises (businesses, organizations, communities, and social initiatives) and whose enterprises have a compelling need to develop, change and adapt in today’s complex and volatile marketplace. Clients include, Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Tenet Healthcare, Seimens, the Santa Barbara County Drug, Alcohol and Mental Health Services, The Human Services Commission and the Santa Barbara Foundation. Mr. Schultz was also asked to address the National Congress on Community Economic Development on the topic of Social Enterprise. He is the former Chief Operating Officer of Collectively Sharper, Inc, a knowledge management software company. Prior to joining Collectively Sharper, Inc., Mr. Schultz was publisher of Leadership Press and director of publications for Senn-Delaney Leadership. He was also co-founder of Learning Arts Publications, a book packaging company producing books for publishers like Chronicle Books, Hyperion, and Tuttle Publications. Mr. Schultz has written or co-written and had published 20 books of his own, 12 of which are on business and American competitiveness. Included are Unconventional Wisdom (HarperCollins, 1994); Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation through Complexity, (with Howard Sherman) (Perseus Books, 1998); and The Mindful Corporation: Liberating the Human Spirit at Work, (with Paul Nakai) (Leadership Press, 2000). Going Public, written with Jim Arkebauer, was released in April 1991, by HarperBusiness and is currently in paperback with Dearborn Press. He produced six books for the Oliver Wight Companies on manufacturing excellence, and through this work with OWC, Mr. Schultz played an instrumental role in the establishment of Just-in-Time manufacturing in the United States. He has also written six science books for children, published by John Muir Publications, as well as a humor book and a book on fathers and pregnancy. Magazine credits include over fifty nationally published articles on topics ranging from the commercialization of outer space, to the preparation of the best chicken soup in Los Angeles. With an expertise in future related topics, Mr. Schultz was a regular contributor to OMNI Magazine, where he wrote feature articles and conducted in-depth featured interviews with Two Nobel Prize winners, as well as the former director of the National Security Agency and the Jet Propulsion Lab. His articles have appeared in Self Magazine, Success, Science Digest, Los Angeles Magazine and many other publications. He was the founding president of the Southland Science Writers Association - a chapter of the National Association of Science Writers. Mr. Schultz has also written extensively for television and films. His Movie of the Week, co-written with T.S.Cook, The Switch, aired in 1991 on CBS, and portrayed the first case in American Jurisprudence that sanctioned suicide by a competent individual and ultimately changed standing practice for the treatment of quadriplegics in the state of Georgia. With the change in statute, the suicide was never carried out. Mr. Schultz is a frequent speaker and columnist. His current column, Adjacent Opportunities appears in the Journal, Emergence: Complexity and Organization. Mr. Schultz is also a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence and a member of the Social Enterprise Alliance. He has lectured and led workshops at the Academy of Management’s National Conference, at MIT, UCLA, the University of New Mexico and was the executive in residence at Adelphi University. As Vice President of Educational Services for Creative Services Group, Mr. Schultz was a consultant and trainer in the areas of creativity and teamworking for clients such as: British Airways, The Robert Mondavi Winery, NASA, the Western States Arts Federation, Bandelier Design, Los Alamos National Bank, Vista Clara Spa, and BDD publishers. In addition, he has regularly taught courses in unlocking creativity in colleges and universities for the past ten years.