Mari Novak

The science and skill of assessment has been the focus and passion of Mari Novak through the phases of her career.  Diagnostics is the starting point. The foundation was laid with diagnosing and integrating motion (swimming rescue/racing).  With an undergraduate in city/regional planning, large scale processes and systems were added to the mix.  A sidestep into community organizing as a Peace Corps Volunteer, brought home the requirement of cultural mores, as well as that local knowledge is necessary for making the right linkages.  Graduate degrees in organization development and performance improvement, with continued study of system dynamics and complexity, and other technical applications have underpinned a 40+ year career, serving in over 40 countries.
From Cleveland, Ohio, educated at Oberlin College, and then Western Michigan University – with gratitude to Dale Brethhower -- Novak had an aptitude for seeing how the pieces did or did not fit together.  After several years of working in utilities and manufacturing, Mari moved to Texas in the early 1980s and  joined her partner Steven J Kelly in the launch of KNO.  Immersed into the Houston-based nuclear plant construction project (specifically, transition from construction to operations), she had to think in systems, processes and feedback loops!  During these years, she trained with Geary Rummler and became well-versed in theory and practice of PI. With the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism, Mari relocated with KNO in 1990 to Prague, (then) Czechoslovakia, 1990. 
Mari’s focus shifted to development in transitional societies.  Under her leadership, KNO executed numerous contracts for the bilateral and multilateral donors supporting reforms in the former Soviet Union.  Program chiefs always asked first for ‘more training’! With KNO teams ‘training’ quickly and effectively transformed into performance improvement.  She introduced  HPT methods and approaches, the value propositions of the organization and system dynamics into that space called “capacity building”.  Working with government ministries, nonprofit organizations, and public-private initiatives,  Mari Novak was instrumental in promoting the performance technology emphasis that a decade later became institutionalized in the US Agency for International Development, and is expanding in both private and public scope around the world today. She is the recipient of ISPI’s 2015 Geary Rummler Award for the Advancement of Performance Improvement.
Address: West Cork, Munster, Ireland