Dr. Joanie B. Connell is a Founding Director of the Summit Discovery Institute and she runs the Ethics & Character Practice Area. In addition to her management responsibilities, Joanie is an organizational researcher and consultant. She consults with companies to improve their leadership talent, coaches individuals to maximize their potential, and conducts research to create and evaluate state-of-the art leadership development tools. At Summit, all of this work is done in the interest of service—to improve the workplace for the people in it and the local and global communities they reside in, as well as to prove the value of doing the right thing.

Joanie has worked as an organizational psychologist in the form of a consultant, a professor, and an in-house human factors engineer. In addition to being a Founding Director at Summit, she runs her own consulting firm, Flexible Work Solutions, Inc., and is an associate at Rembisz & Associates. Previously, she worked as an organizational consultant for Personnel Decisions International. She teaches/has taught organizational psychology courses at the Rady School of Management at the University of California San Diego, Marshall Goldsmith School of Management at Alliant International University, and at National University. She researches and consults in a variety of areas, including leadership development, integrity and trust, change management, life planning, flexible work arrangements, and virtual teams. Joanie has her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her B.A. in Engineering from Harvard University.