The DXM™ Institute Leadership Team

In 2007, Kn became the first person in the Charitable Sector to become professionally certified in Customer Experience Management. Across a career of nearly four decades, Kn has always focused on “what’s next?” His most recent agency roles have included SVP Insight and Innovation and SVP Strategic and Applied Foresight at Masterworks, the largest agency in the faith-inspired sector. Prior to that he was Chief Creative Officer and Lead Strategist for Grizzard Communications, then the largest agency serving the Nonprofit Sector.

Kn’s first encounter around the power of experience came in 1986. As Senior Research Associate at World Vision, he led the research initiative to understand how human transformation was occurring in the context of an emerging programmatic sector called the “short-term mission experience.” As a result of this research, World Vision pioneered onsite, immersive, field experiences for their donors around the world. In 1987, Kn led the team that published the first-ever book in the short-term mission experience industry. This book is still the fastest-selling book ever in that category, and the most widely distributed book, now in its sixth printing.

A pioneer in experience design in the Charitable Sector, Robert joined the DXM™ Institute Leadership Team after 24 years at World Vision. He led World Vision’s efforts to break new ground in experience engagement and fundraising, serving as Executive Producer for all of World Vision’s award-winning, interactive, and immersive experiences, including the groundbreaking World Vision Experience: AIDS in 2007.

In his capacity as Executive Creative Director and Senior Strategist at World Vision and, most recently, as World Vision’s Chief Global Brand Officer, Robert rapid-prototyped an experience delivery methodology that connected the dots across an organization’s brand, world-class design, digital best practices, principles of authentic human interaction, and immersive experience.

Mark is the quintessential social entrepreneur. Across a management career of four decades at the intersection of the nonprofit, church, and for-profit sectors, Mark is happiest when he is defining and shaping bold solutions that drive social change around the world.

Mark served 20 years on Rick Warren’s leadership team at Saddleback Church. There, he directed global leader-training for Purpose Driven Ministries, helped establish the P.E.A.C.E. Plan, and planted Saddleback extensions around the world. He currently serves on the boards of Rockbridge Seminary, Living on the Edge, and Cetyl Energy. 

Mark and Kn first came together in 1984 where they helped launch World Vision’s U.S. Ministries Division. Before joining Saddleback Church’s leadership team, Mark worked at an investment banking firm and an alternative energy development company.

Social entrepreneurs are a rarity. Social entrepreneurs that understand that it’s never just about launching that next new idea if you’re unable to scale profitably and sustainably, are the rarest of all. That’s Ralph. In addition to having served as CEO of two charitable organizations, including Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles, the largest private homeless shelter in the U.S., Ralph is a veteran senior executive with noteworthy experience in leading emerging social enterprise start-ups to sustainable success, and has recently taught innovative, earned-income approaches for social enterprise at USC Marshall School of Business. Ralph’s driving passion IS social enterprise — which Ralph calls “redemptive entrepreneurship” within the faith community — especially the creation of new and innovative sources of financial capital for doing good. As the methods, means, and decisions on where to access financial capital rapidly change in today’s Experience Economy, Ralph leads the Institute’s social enterprise advancement offering that focuses around his work in rapid prototyping innovative strategies that deliver new and sustainable revenue sources for doing good in our world.

There is no need to overcomplicate DX. Superlative DX is simply about delivering great content through convenient, personalized experiences. That’s what today’s donors expect.

As the DXM™ Institute’s content experience maestro, Michael leads the Institute’s content experience development team that understands the surest path to superlative experience is great content experience.

Michael is an award-winning, bestselling, book author, ghostwriter, editor, publisher, and content strategist. He has worked on projects with authors like Brennan Manning, Michael John Cusick, and former President Jimmy Carter. In 2015, he founded Illumify Media Global, one of the fastest growing publishing companies in the faith-inspired marketplace.

Hailed as the “The Questions Lady,” Kay is a national leader in research for faith-based and mission-driven organizations. For more than 30 years she has provided customer research, market analytics, planning, collaboration management, and organizational development to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including Cru, Chick-Fil-A, and Thrivent.

In her knowledge-leadership role for DXM™ Institute, Kay drives the development of the Institute’s platform that focuses on donor experience optimization from both the missional and revenue-generation perspectives, especially around establishing a more solid foundation for making better and more complex analyses of holistic donor experience creation and delivery, grounded on donor needs and expectations.

She is a frequent speaker on the topics of listening and relationship-building strategies for leaders, understanding what customers value, and how generational change impacts organizations. Kay believes that great leaders don’t have better answers; they ask better questions. Her greatest joy is helping leaders understand what the world most needs their organizations to do. In today’s Experience Economy, the answer to that question is “a superlative experience.”

Steve is a nationally-acclaimed brand strategist having transformed brands for organizations in both the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors, including companies like Microsoft Corporation and, very recently, as Lead Brand Counsel in Cru’s name change (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and brand strategy development. In his role at the DXM™ Institute, Steve is advancing and expanding the new medium of brand experience that according to the Ad Age 2017 Top Agency Report is growing faster than advertising, PR, CRM, and media, at a rate second only to digital. “Brand experience,” Steve likes to say, “applies a larger, more colorful set of branding tools, and employs the whole box of crayons, not just a few, to design an authentic, immersive, and holistic experience that brings a person into a lasting and meaningful relationship with a brand.”

Throughout his career, Robert has been an accelerator and changemaker for early-stage business and technology. After a decade in multifamily office (MFO) operations and management, he teamed with the former TRW Inc. Vice Chairperson to develop pre-seed, launch funding and strategy development for technology start-ups. Over the next period of his career he founded and managed a strategic advisory firm that identified, operationalized, and oversaw strategic collaborations between Japanese multinational corporations seeking innovative technology and U.S.-based development-stage tech companies seeking the resources and capabilities of the multinational corporations. Robert has co-founded and held development-stage operating and management positions in five individual and institutional-funded technology companies. His guiding work principle has always been betterment through innovation. He brings a social entrepreneurial mindset to his leadership role at the DXM™ Institute.