Turn Collaboration into Action

A group of people working together to solve a jigsaw puzzle on a wooden table.


Brian Kolenich is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of leadership in nonprofit healthcare, specializing in performance excellence, agile strategy, and aging innovation.


A longtime Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Master Examiner and Judge for the Partnership for Excellence, Brian has evaluated and supported high-performing organizations across the nation for more than two decades, advancing excellence through rigorous assessment and feedback.


As a Certified Workshop Leader and Fellow of the Strategic Doing Institute, Brian brings a collaborative, systems-thinking approach to strategy development. He has facilitated practitioner training sessions with participants from four continents and has led numerous workshops that help organizations move from ideas to action through agile collaboration.


Brian is also a pioneer in the field of active aging. He led a $1.8M capital campaign to launch the Mahoning Valley Lifelong Learning Institute and other initiatives serving 1,800+ older adults across three counties. In 2023, he founded the Active Aging Ideation Lab,  which combines monthly expert-led broadcasts with innovation workshops that advance community-based aging solutions.

Through The Strategic  Sandbox, Brian now helps healthcare and nonprofit organizations solve complex challenges using a unique blend of Baldrige rigor and agile methodologies, delivering strategy with lasting impact.


What We Do

Whether you’re needing a new strategic direction, reenergizing your current strategic plan, leading a retreat, launching an initiative, or strengthening your organization’s systems, we can help. Explore our services:

  • Meeting Facilitation
    Design and guide productive conversations that lead to clarity and action.
  • Strategy Workshops
    Energize teams, uncover assets, and co-create actionable plans—in just a few hours.
  • Practitioner Training
    Build your team’s capacity to lead change with certified Strategic Doing training.
  • Performance Excellence Consulting/Baldrige Coaching
    Align leadership, operations, and results with a proven roadmap from the Baldrige Framework.