1. 27 August 2016
From: Robert Cooper, Ph.D.
To: Susan J. Duggan, Ph.D.
CEO
Smart World Center
T: 831-331-6638
E: duggan@smartworldcenter.com
http://www.smartworldcenter.com
I have known Susan Duggan, Ph.D., for more than twenty years. She has worked with me on several
research projects, and in corporate breakthrough sessions across the years. She is one of the most
exceptional leaders, innovators, and breakthrough facilitators I have ever known. I make this
comment from the perspective of devoting more than two decades to leading a team of 70
specialists in working with thousands of leaders and many hundreds of organizations around the
world.
Susan’s leadership made the Silicon Valley World Internet Center one of the most significant
catalysts for collaborative leadership breakthroughs in the history of Silicon Valley. Her consulting
and advisory work with top executives and the boards of some of the world’s most influential
companies has helped them identity the pitfalls of trying to meet today’s challenges and
opportunities by “polishing the past” and, instead, to commit to “creating the future”—effectively
surpassing today’s expectations while leading the way forward. In my view, no organization can
survive—let alone thrive—in today’s business world without such vision and action.
As a leader, Susan has many exceptional traits. Among them: she is extremely bright, thinks
strategically, loves learning, continually pilot-tests improvements and breakthroughs, finds ways to
streamline and align what matters most while minimizing or eliminating what matters least,
communicates exceedingly well across a full spectrum of organizational and personal settings, and
significantly upgrades any mission or brand she works with. Her specific strengths include:
! Shaping strategy for multi-sector initiatives while pinpointing the best tactics to execute
! Identifying and focusing innovative ideas, clarifying the best paths forward, and creating
breakthrough product ideas through highly designed collaborative sessions
! Supporting the accelerated success of large initiatives using her qualitative research skills
! Managing priority projects and staff
! Communicating in every way that matters: in writing; presenting; public speaking
As a human being, she is of the highest caliber: engaged, curious, caring, creative, respectful,
practical, a bold visionary, a make-it-happen pragmatist, a world citizen (speaking five languages
and having worked around the world), a warm and loving mother, and a community activist for
positive change.
I give Susan my highest personal recommendation,
Robert Cooper, Ph.D.
CEO
Cooper Strategic LLC
2232 South Main Street
Suite 350
Ann Arbor MI 48103-6938 USA
O: 1.734.332.3475
Cooper@CooperStrategic.com