About My Mentor: Roland "Mr. Yogi" Sullivan

Since the mid-1960's, he has been a full time organization development (OD) pioneer. He has worked with over 1100 organizations in 19 countries and in virtually every major industry.

NTL, known for bringing the phrase “change agent” to the world, has provided him with intense and extensive laboratory change and development training since the 60s. He also has a Master’s in OD from Loyola in Chicago and Pepperdine in Los Angeles. Pepperdine is reputed to have the most recognized degree on Change Management in the world. Roland has taught courses on change consulting at seven universities over the past 30 years.

With Dr. William Rothwell, he has just released the second edition of one of the field's seminal books, Practicing OD: A Guide for Consultants, Second Edition (Wiley/Jossey-Bass/Pfieffer). The first edition was the first major Organization Change Management book to be translated into Chinese. Along with Quade and Rothwell, Roland is the editor of the new Wiley Organization Change and Development Series. A dozen volumes have been published including the first book to integrate whole systems thinking with strategic planning and enterprise-wide change. His writings on OD have been widely published and translated into Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

For over two decades, Roland has served as Chair of the OD Institute's Committee to Define Knowledge and Skills for Competence in OD. The Institute uses this research in accrediting university programs around the globe in organization change. 21 editions of his change agent competencies have been created over the years.

The Organization Development Institute recognized his frontier work in big system change and large group facilitation by awarding him the outstanding OD Consultant of the world. Both the local chapter of the American Society of Training and Development as well as the Minnesota OD Network granted him their Organization Development Professional of the Year awards. Recently he was runner-up of the Outstanding Change Project of the World for his work with South Africa’s largest financial enterprise (ABSA). Profits in one of the business units of 2,000 employees increased 69%. Their brand as result of our corporate wide consulting effort became the most “loved” brand in all of SA. In the year 2004, it was awarded the best company to work for in Africa. Currently ABSA conducts 12 major summits per year to plan and grow their business. Roland has introduced large group summits to numerous countries such as Mexico, India, Malaysia and Switzerland.

Richard Beckhard, his late mentor and friend, who coined the phrase ‘Organization Development’ with Douglas McGregor (Theory Y and Theory X), recognized Roland to be among the world's first 100 professional change agents.

Roland considers himself not from any one country but a global citizen. Because he is so enthralled with the wonderful and dynamic change in Dubai, he has made a commitment to work there on a regular basis for years to come. Mr. Sullivan has chosen Ms. Mubeena Mohd, M.A. to be his mentee over on the legacy of his pioneering work.