Upcoming Events
July 15 | 12 - 1 p.m. | Zoom Webinar
A humbling learning for anyone in an operations role is the dramatic difference in scale and impact when you individually are facilitating improvements rather than mobilizing a full team. An engaged team opens the door to massive scale and creative ideas, but how do you influence a team to problem-solve, implement change management, and institutionalize optimizations?
Intentional leadership with strong organizational intelligence is the answer. Building an organizational structure that delivers on both the organization's ambitions, but also the individuals' drives stronger results. Inspiring a culture of initiative, passion, confidence, and dedication to clear outcomes develops teams that can thrive.
In this webinar, attendees will learn:
- How to build growth plans for individuals that fuel long-term engagement.
- How to hold meaningful conversations that develop individuals, help them realize their full potential, and pull out their most valuable capabilities.
- How to bring neurodivergent, unique thinkers, and diverse problem solvers together towards shared visions and goals.
Julia Sebastian is an operational leader with over 15 years of experience across global corporations, advertising agencies, and technology startups. Her sweet spot is translating ambitious visions into actionable strategies and measurable results. She has led the integration of numerous acquisitions driving efficiency, cost savings, and enhanced product offerings, as well as crafted and executed successful investment pitch strategies. In addition to supporting operational strategies and workflows, she also has led human resource functions, connecting the pivotal synergy of people and systems.
She currently serves as the SVP of Business Management & Marketing for healthcare technology startup, IgniteData. IgniteData is focused on operationalizing data transfers for clinical trial research. Julia leads internal business operations, people & culture, as well as marketing. She also serves as an Adjunct Faculty member for the Master of Business Operational Excellence (MBOE) at The Ohio State University, where she focuses on brining technology and AI into operational initiatives.
Julia holds a Master of Business Operational Excellence (MBOE), is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, and was named one of Columbus Business First’s 40 Under 40. She is the Co-Founder of Sebastian & Co., an operations consultancy offering fractional operational leadership and execution to scaling businesses. In her spare time, she is a fierce reader, an eager traveler always hunting for a new destination, and a beginner tennis player.
Natalie Huezo is a seasoned operations and project management leader with more than 13 years of experience across the advertising industry. She is most inspired by the people behind the work. She believes that great outcomes are built through strong relationships, thoughtful collaboration, and creating environments where individuals and teams can thrive. Known for her pragmatic approach and empathetic leadership style, she excels at bringing structure to ambiguity, aligning cross-functional teams, and transforming chaos into clarity.
Her passion lies in designing processes that empower people to do their best work. Whether building workflows, scaling operations, or fostering collaboration across disciplines, Natalie approaches every challenge with equal parts curiosity, organization, and heart. She currently serves as the VP of Project Management for a healthcare marketing agency, Unlock Health. Unlock Health is a full-service marketing communications agency, grounded in technology, built for healthcare. She is the Co-Founder of Sebastian & Co., an operations consultancy offering fractional operational leadership and execution to scaling businesses.
Outside of work, you'll likely find her chasing after her toddler, planning her family's next hiking adventure, or searching for new ways to expand her perspective. For Natalie, the best partnerships begin with genuine connection. She believes that understanding people (their goals, motivations, and stories) is the foundation for meaningful collaboration and lasting success.
July 29 | 12 - 1 p.m. | Zoom Webinar
Organizations today have access to more data, more technology, and more sophisticated tools than ever before, yet many continue to struggle with recurring problems, stalled initiatives, and improvement efforts that fail to deliver lasting results. Despite the best of intentions, organizations often invest significant time and resources addressing symptoms while the underlying causes remain unresolved. One of lean's most enduring lessons is that improvement is less about finding better solutions and more about developing a deeper understanding of the problem. Lasting improvement requires a clear understanding of current conditions, the gap between current and desired performance, and the underlying factors that create that gap.
Join Kelly Reo, COE's Executive Director, for a practical exploration of the foundational lean principles and practices that continue to guide effective problem solving across industries. Whether you're new to lean or simply looking to reconnect with the fundamentals, this session will explore how lean thinkers approach problems by:
- Defining problems clearly and distinguishing symptoms from underlying issues
- Understanding current conditions and identifying gaps between current and desired performance
- Observing work firsthand by direct observation (Gemba) and direct engagement with the people closest to the work
- Using Five Whys and systems thinking to uncover root causes
- Applying PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and scientific thinking to build understanding before taking action
Attendees will leave with practical techniques for framing problems, understanding current realities, identifying root causes, and strengthening problem solving and decision-making within their organizations.
Kelly Reo is Executive Director at the Center for Operational Excellence (COE) at The Ohio State University, a business consortium that connects organizations of all industries on their journeys to build and sustain a culture of problem solving and continuous improvement. Kelly’s passion for operational excellence stems from her 20 years in IT and business consulting – first as a program and project manager of strategic initiatives and business transformations for clients in financial services, utilities, retail, healthcare, and higher education – then as Vice President of Operations & Marketing. She is a committed leader with a proven track record of managing technology-enabled business transformations and managing and mentoring teams.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems and a master’s of Operational Excellence, both from The Ohio State University. Kelly also received a Marketing Management certificate from Harvard University and maintains several other certifications including the Project Management Professional (PMP) and Six Sigma Blackbelt.
August 19 | 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. | In-Person Tour
Hit the road with the Center for Operational Excellence and experience operations in action at Copeland and Midmark during a special full-day tour opportunity!
Copeland is a global leader in sustainable heating, cooling and refrigeration compression technologies and controls solutions for commercial, industrial, cold chain and residential end markets. In the morning, participants will tour Copeland’s multifunctional campus in Sidney that houses offices, labs, and manufacturing plants for building compressors and assembling condensing units. Participants will learn about the Copeland Business System and how the facility optimizes their processes and scheduling in a high-mix, low-volume environment.
In the afternoon, participants will head to Midmark’s largest manufacturing facility and headquarters in Versailles. Midmark Corporation designs seamless clinical care experiences that millions of medical, dental and veterinary visits depend on every day. They manufacture a comprehensive ecosystem of products and solutions, including exam tables, dental chairs, cabinetry, and diagnostic stations. Participants will see metal fabrication, paint lines, and assembly areas, while learning about the Midmark Production System that supports efficient workflows in their high-mix, low-volume setting.
This tour will be led by on-site hosts at each facility. Lunch will be provided. Selected participants will be responsible for their own transportation and should be prepared for extensive walking inside the facilities. Keep in mind that travel time from Columbus to the first location is roughly 1.5 hours.
This is a limited-capacity, in-person only event. Please submit your interest using the form below. Participants will be selected from interest form submissions in coordination with COE board representatives from each member company. If you have been selected, you’ll receive an email with additional instructions by July 30.
August 26 | 12 – 1 p.m. | Zoom Webinar
Lean Into AI Series
Agentic automation is quickly becoming the next frontier of enterprise AI, yet organizations are rushing to deploy ‘agents’ without first establishing a common definition of what agentic actually means or designing the organizational systems required to support it. The challenge isn’t selecting the right technology—it’s redesigning the enterprise to govern, integrate, and continuously improve a digital workforce alongside human teams. This is a challenge Lean and operational excellence leaders are uniquely positioned to solve.
To continue Lean Into AI series, transformation leader Sandeep Chennikara will join Steve Pereira for a conversation on agentic automation as an enterprise design challenge. They’ll discuss why every AI-enabled solution shouldn’t be considered an agent and where the real competitive advantage lies. The conversation will highlight how Lean capabilities such as systems thinking, operating model design, governance, and continuous improvement can evolve from optimizing human work to orchestrating human and digital work together.
Webinar attendees will gain:
- A practical approach for evaluating agentic automation beyond vendor claims and technology hype.
- A new perspective on how operational excellence, transformation, and Lean leaders can extend their expertise from process improvement to enterprise design.
- Actionable ideas for building the structures, governance, and operating capabilities needed to scale agentic automation responsibly.
Speakers
Sandeep Chennikara is a transformation leader with more than 15 years of experience driving measurable outcomes across large financial services organizations, with a focus on operating at the intersection of process and technology. He currently serves as Director of RPA and Automation at HUB International, one of the largest and fastest-growing insurance brokerages in the United States, where he is part of the AI & Automation organization focused on scaling automation and advancing AI-driven capabilities across the business.
At Discover Financial Services, Sandeep built and led a Finance Transformation Office and established an intelligent automation capability by evolving an RPA program into a broader automation function. He also led large-scale technology initiatives within the digital payments organization, working closely with product teams and implementing Agile operating models. Earlier in his career, he led Lean transformation initiatives at Liberty Mutual Insurance focused on improving operational performance at scale.
Sandeep holds an MBA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a bachelor’s degree in business management from Purdue University.
Steve Pereira, emcee, is obsessed with making tech human and leveraging it to deliver continuous value. Steve has spent over two decades improving the flow of work across organizations. He’s worked through tech support, IT management, build and release engineering, and as a founding CTO for enterprise SaaS.
He serves as lead consultant for Visible Value Stream Consulting, as a board advisor to the Value Stream Management Consortium, Chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee, and co-founder of the Flow Collective to bring flow-focused professionals together. Since 2017, he has been developing and facilitating Flow Engineering to make flow improvement in large organizations accessible, collaborative, and actionable.
Host Organizations
This series is part of the collaborative work of leading OpEx consortia under the shared initiative Future of People at Work:
- Catalysis
- Central Coast Lean
- Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP)
- Imagining Excellence / Eyes to See
- Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI)
- Ohio State’s Center for Operational Excellence (COE)
- Shingo Institute
- Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC)
- The University of Kentucky Lean Systems Program
This initiative represents an unprecedented collaboration among leading improvement-focused organizations dedicated to building better ways of working together. Together, these networks are reimagining work and continuous improvement for a new era of technological change.
Save the Date
October 7, 11 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. | A3 Workshop with Whitney Mantonya and Jill Treece, Fisher College of Business (In-Person; Limited Capacity)
December 4, 10:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. | 4th Annual AI Insights from Academia to Industry Event (Hybrid - In-Person at the Fawcett Center or via Zoom)
April 6 - 8, 2027 | COE Summit 2027