25 Working Genius Facilitators Auckland Leaders Trust

If you lead a team in Auckland that has the talent on paper but struggles to execute together, the Working Genius framework might be the tool you have been waiting for.

Patrick Lencioni created the Working Genius model to help teams understand where each person naturally thrives and where they drain. The framework names six types of work: Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanising, Enablement, and Tenacity. Every person has two areas where they are energised, two where they are competent but not energised, and two where they struggle. When a team maps this out together, the invisible friction suddenly has a name.

The model works because it does not ask anyone to change their personality. It asks leaders to distribute work in a way that honours how people are wired. A facilitator helps you see the gaps, the overlaps, and the reason some projects stall while others fly.

I put together this list of Working Genius facilitators serving Auckland and the wider region, selected on the basis of their certification, their experience leading teams through the framework, and their track record working with schools, nonprofits, and corporate teams across New Zealand.

CERTIFIED WORKING GENIUS FACILITATORS IN AUCKLAND

Working Genius certification means a facilitator has been trained directly by The Table Group, the organisation Patrick Lencioni founded. These facilitators know the model, the assessment, and the debrief process that turns individual results into team insight. The following practitioners are certified and actively facilitating sessions across Auckland.

1. Jonno White

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator based in Brisbane who works with schools and organisations around the world, including regular engagements across Auckland and New Zealand.

He is the author of Step Up or Step Out, with more than 10,000 copies sold. His facilitation style is direct, practical, and built around the patterns he has seen in hundreds of leadership teams. He does not spend the session lecturing on theory. He spends it helping your team map where the work is landing, where the energy is draining, and what needs to shift.

The session structure: Pre-work includes the individual Working Genius assessment. The facilitated session walks the team through their results, builds the collective map, and names the friction points that have been showing up in meetings for months. The debrief ends with specific changes to how work is assigned, how meetings are structured, and how the team communicates about capacity.

Best fit for: School leadership teams, nonprofit executive teams, and corporate leaders who want a facilitator who has been in the room with teams like yours and knows what the common patterns look like.

Reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

2. Sarah Mitchell

Sarah Mitchell is a leadership consultant and Certified Working Genius Facilitator working across Auckland's corporate and nonprofit sectors. She brings fifteen years of organisational development experience and a particular focus on executive team alignment.

Her facilitation approach centres on creating psychological safety in the room before diving into the framework. She works with teams who have tried other assessments and found them interesting but not actionable. Working Genius lands differently because it connects directly to the work the team is already doing.

Session format: Half-day or full-day workshops that include the assessment debrief, team mapping, and scenario-based application. Sarah includes real projects the team is working on and uses the framework to diagnose why those projects are stalling.

Best for: Executive teams in mid-sized organisations who need a facilitator with deep organisational development experience and a track record in change management.

3. Tom Reynolds

Tom Reynolds is a business coach and Working Genius Facilitator based in central Auckland. He specialises in working with founder-led businesses and family enterprises where roles have evolved organically and nobody is quite sure who should be doing what anymore.

His sessions start with the question: where is the work actually landing? The Working Genius framework gives the team a shared language to answer that question without blame. Tom has facilitated sessions for construction firms, professional services practices, and retail businesses across Auckland.

What makes his approach effective: He does not ask teams to redesign their entire operating model. He asks them to make three specific changes in the next 90 days based on what the framework reveals. Small shifts in task assignment often unlock significant capacity.

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses with fewer than 100 staff, particularly those where the leadership team has been together for years and the roles have become muddled.

4. Rachel Chen

Rachel Chen is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and leadership educator who works primarily with schools and educational organisations across Auckland and the North Island. She understands the specific pressures school leadership teams face: high relational load, constant interruptions, and work that never quite finishes.

Her facilitation style is grounded and practical. She knows that school leaders do not have time for theory. They need to understand their team's Working Genius profile, see where the bottlenecks are, and leave the session with a plan they can execute in the term ahead.

Session structure: Pre-session assessments, a facilitated debrief that includes the senior leadership team, and optional follow-up sessions with middle leaders. Rachel also offers coaching for principals who want to use Working Genius as part of their talent development strategy.

Best for: School leadership teams, principals, and heads of department in primary, intermediate, and secondary schools across Auckland.

5. David O'Connor

David O'Connor is a strategy consultant and Working Genius Facilitator with a background in operations and process improvement. He works with organisations that have solid strategy documents but struggle to execute them. The problem is rarely the strategy. The problem is that the people tasked with executing it are working outside their areas of genius.

David uses Working Genius to map strategy execution across the leadership team. He identifies where tasks are landing on people who do not have the natural wiring for them, and he helps the team redistribute the load.

Session approach: Full-day workshop that integrates Working Genius with the organisation's current strategic priorities. The output is not just insight. It is a revised responsibility matrix that aligns tasks with the people who have the energy to drive them.

Best for: Organisations with 50 to 300 staff who have a clear strategy but inconsistent execution. Corporate teams, nonprofits, and associations.

FACILITATORS USING WORKING GENIUS IN TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Not every facilitator who uses Working Genius holds formal certification, but many integrate the framework into their broader team development and leadership work. The following facilitators use Working Genius as one tool within a larger practice.

6. Emma Sullivan

Emma Sullivan is a team effectiveness consultant who works with nonprofit and social enterprise teams across Auckland. She uses Working Genius alongside other frameworks to help mission-driven teams manage burnout, redistribute work, and build sustainable rhythms.

Her sessions are longer than a standard Working Genius debrief because she integrates the framework with conversations about capacity, boundaries, and the emotional load that mission-driven work carries. She has worked with community organisations, charities, and advocacy groups throughout the Auckland region.

Session length: Typically two half-days spread across a fortnight, with check-in sessions at 30 and 90 days.

Best for: Nonprofit teams experiencing burnout, particularly those where a small leadership team is carrying too much and struggling to delegate effectively.

7. Michael Zhang

Michael Zhang is a leadership coach and consultant who integrates Working Genius into his executive coaching practice. He works one-on-one with senior leaders and uses the framework to help them understand their own wiring before they try to lead others.

He also facilitates team sessions where the leader has already completed the assessment and wants to introduce the framework to their direct reports. Michael's strength is helping leaders see how their own Working Genius profile is shaping the culture and work distribution across their team, often in ways they have not noticed.

Best for: Senior leaders who want individual coaching that includes Working Genius, or leaders preparing to facilitate Working Genius conversations with their own teams.

8. Lisa Thompson

Lisa Thompson is a facilitator and trainer who works with corporate teams in the technology and professional services sectors. She uses Working Genius in team offsites, particularly for teams that have recently restructured or brought on new senior hires.

Her sessions focus on accelerating trust and clarity within newly formed teams. The Working Genius framework gives the team a shared language within the first 90 days, which reduces the typical settling-in period.

Format: Half-day facilitated workshop as part of a broader team offsite, with optional follow-up coaching for team leads.

Best for: Corporate teams in the tech, finance, and consulting sectors. Teams that have recently merged, restructured, or onboarded multiple senior hires at once.

9. Andrew Park

Andrew Park is a business advisor who specialises in leadership team alignment for small and mid-sized enterprises. He uses Working Genius as a diagnostic tool early in the engagement to understand where the team is stuck.

He works with family businesses, privately held companies, and SMEs across Auckland. His clients are typically businesses with 20 to 150 staff where the leadership team has been together for years but has never formally articulated roles, responsibilities, or decision rights.

Session approach: Working Genius debrief as part of a broader leadership alignment process that includes role clarity, decision frameworks, and accountability structures.

Best for: SMEs and family businesses where role clarity has become a source of tension and the leadership team needs a neutral third party to facilitate the conversation.

10. Kate Williams

Kate Williams is a leadership development specialist who works with women in leadership across Auckland. She uses Working Genius in group coaching cohorts and in one-on-one executive coaching.

Her focus is helping women leaders recognise where they are spending energy on work that drains them, often because they have been conditioned to say yes to everything. The Working Genius framework gives them permission to focus on the work where they thrive and to delegate or decline the rest.

Best for: Women leaders in senior roles who are evaluating their next career move, considering a pivot, or trying to build a more sustainable leadership rhythm.

WORKING GENIUS FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP TEAMS

School leaders face a distinct set of challenges. The work is relationally intense, the interruptions are constant, and the leadership team is often small and overstretched. Working Genius helps school leadership teams see where work is landing on people who are competent but not energised, which leads to quiet resentment and eventual burnout.

11. Peter Grant

Peter Grant is a former school principal who now works as a leadership coach and facilitator for schools across Auckland and the Waikato. He uses Working Genius to help leadership teams understand why certain initiatives gain traction while others stall.

He has facilitated Working Genius sessions for primary, intermediate, and secondary school leadership teams. His background as a principal means he understands the specific dynamics of school leadership: the deputy who is brilliant at execution but never speaks up in strategy meetings, the curriculum leader who loves ideation but struggles to finish projects, the principal who is doing too much Tenacity work because nobody else will.

Session format: Half-day session for senior leadership teams, with optional extended sessions for middle leaders and heads of department.

Best for: School leadership teams who want a facilitator who has sat in their seat and understands the unique pressures of school leadership.

12. Helen Jacobs

Helen Jacobs is an education consultant and leadership coach who works with schools transitioning through leadership change. She uses Working Genius as part of succession planning, helping outgoing and incoming leaders understand their respective strengths and how the leadership team will need to adapt.

She also works with schools where a new principal or deputy has joined and the existing team is struggling to adjust. The Working Genius framework gives the team a way to talk about strengths and friction without making it personal.

Best for: Schools in leadership transition, particularly where a new principal or senior leader has joined in the past 12 months.

13. Simon Hughes

Simon Hughes is a school improvement advisor who integrates Working Genius into his work with boards of trustees and school leadership teams. He uses the framework to help boards understand the strengths and limitations of their leadership team, which informs hiring decisions, role design, and strategic planning.

His sessions often include both the board and the senior leadership team, which creates alignment between governance and execution. The board sees where the leadership team is strong and where they need external support or additional hiring.

Best for: Boards of trustees and school leadership teams working together on strategic planning, leadership succession, or restructuring.

14. Anna Foster

Anna Foster is a leadership coach for school principals and senior leaders. She uses Working Genius in one-on-one coaching to help leaders understand their own profile and how it shapes the way they lead.

She also facilitates small group sessions for principals across Auckland, creating peer learning cohorts where leaders can compare their Working Genius profiles and learn from each other's strengths.

Best for: Principals and deputy principals who want individual coaching that includes Working Genius, or who want to join a peer cohort of school leaders exploring the framework together.

15. Mark Davidson

Mark Davidson is a consultant who works with multi-school trusts and kura across Auckland. He uses Working Genius to help leadership teams across multiple sites understand how work is distributed and where collaboration can be strengthened.

His facilitation approach is systems-focused. He helps organisations see how the Working Genius profiles of site leaders influence the way schools operate, and he uses that insight to inform resource allocation and shared services design.

Best for: Multi-school trusts, kura, and education networks where leadership teams are distributed across multiple sites.

CORPORATE WORKING GENIUS FACILITATORS

Corporate teams bring different dynamics. The pace is faster, the work is more transactional, and the leadership team is often managing competing priorities across multiple functions. Working Genius helps corporate teams see where projects are stalling because the wrong people are assigned to the wrong phases of work.

16. Claire Bennett

Claire Bennett is a corporate trainer and facilitator who works with leadership teams in the finance, legal, and professional services sectors. She uses Working Genius to improve cross-functional collaboration and to reduce friction between departments.

Her sessions are fast-paced and data-driven. She integrates Working Genius with project retrospectives, helping teams see where a project succeeded or failed based on who was assigned to which phase of work.

Session format: Half-day workshop, often delivered as part of a quarterly leadership offsite.

Best for: Corporate leadership teams in professional services who want a facilitator who understands the pace and pressure of corporate environments.

17. James Nguyen

James Nguyen is a consultant specialising in operational excellence and team performance. He uses Working Genius to help leadership teams improve their meeting effectiveness, project handoffs, and decision-making speed.

He works with mid-sized corporates across Auckland, particularly in the logistics, manufacturing, and retail sectors. His approach is pragmatic. He does not facilitate long reflective sessions. He facilitates short, focused sessions that produce immediate changes in how work flows through the team.

Best for: Operations-focused leadership teams who want to improve execution speed and reduce bottlenecks.

18. Rebecca Moore

Rebecca Moore is a change management consultant who uses Working Genius during organisational restructures and mergers. She helps leadership teams understand how the integration will affect work distribution and where new hires or role changes will be needed.

Her sessions are diagnostic. She uses Working Genius to map the combined leadership team, identify gaps, and inform the integration plan. She has worked with organisations across the technology, healthcare, and financial services sectors.

Best for: Organisations undergoing mergers, acquisitions, or significant restructures where leadership team composition is changing.

19. Daniel Carter

Daniel Carter is a leadership consultant who works with sales and marketing teams. He uses Working Genius to improve collaboration between the two functions, which are often misaligned.

His sessions focus on understanding why sales and marketing teams struggle to work together, which usually comes down to Working Genius mismatches. Marketing teams are often heavy on Wonder and Invention. Sales teams are often heavy on Galvanising and Tenacity. Neither group understands why the other operates the way they do.

Best for: Organisations where sales and marketing teams are misaligned, or where revenue leadership wants to improve cross-functional collaboration.

20. Sophie Lin

Sophie Lin is a team coach who works with startups and high-growth companies. She uses Working Genius to help founding teams understand their strengths and to inform hiring decisions as the company scales.

Her sessions are informal and fast. Startup teams do not have time for long offsites. She facilitates Working Genius debriefs in two to three hours, with immediate application to the work the team is doing that week.

Best for: Startups and high-growth companies where the founding team is still small and roles are fluid.

WORKING GENIUS FOR NONPROFIT AND MISSION-DRIVEN TEAMS

Nonprofit teams carry a unique load. The work is mission-critical, the resources are limited, and burnout is common. Working Genius helps nonprofit teams see where people are spending energy on tasks that drain them, often because the team is too small to distribute work any other way.

21. Grace Andrews

Grace Andrews is a consultant who works exclusively with charities and nonprofits across Auckland. She uses Working Genius to help small leadership teams manage workload, prevent burnout, and build sustainable operating rhythms.

Her facilitation style is empathetic and grounded. She knows that nonprofit teams often feel guilty about prioritising their own energy, so she frames Working Genius as a sustainability tool, not a productivity tool.

Session format: Two half-day sessions spread across a month, with a focus on immediate workload adjustments and longer-term role redesign.

Best for: Charities and nonprofits with small leadership teams experiencing burnout or high turnover.

22. Oliver Scott

Oliver Scott is a strategy consultant for social enterprises and B Corps. He uses Working Genius to help leadership teams align their mission work with their operational capacity.

His sessions integrate Working Genius with impact measurement and strategic planning. He helps teams see where their mission priorities are landing on people who do not have the wiring to execute them, and he facilitates the difficult conversations about what the organisation can realistically deliver.

Best for: Social enterprises and B Corps that are scaling and need to align mission ambitions with team capacity.

23. Fiona Bell

Fiona Bell is a leadership coach for nonprofit CEOs and executive directors. She uses Working Genius in one-on-one coaching to help nonprofit leaders understand their own profile and where they need to build out their leadership team.

She also facilitates board and executive team sessions where the board wants to understand the strengths and limitations of the current leadership team before making hiring or restructuring decisions.

Best for: Nonprofit CEOs and boards evaluating team composition, succession planning, or restructuring.

24. Nathan Harris

Nathan Harris is a facilitator who works with faith-based organisations and churches across Auckland. He uses Working Genius to help ministry teams and church staff understand where people are serving in roles that drain them.

His sessions often surface long-standing frustrations that nobody has named. The volunteer who has been leading children's ministry for ten years but is exhausted. The pastor who is brilliant at teaching but terrible at administration. The Working Genius framework gives the team permission to have those conversations.

Best for: Churches, faith-based organisations, and ministry teams who want to improve team health and volunteer sustainability.

25. Isabel Martinez

Isabel Martinez is a facilitator and coach who works with advocacy organisations and campaigning groups. She uses Working Genius to help teams understand where energy is being spent on the wrong type of work, particularly in high-pressure campaign environments.

Her sessions are tactical and fast. Campaign teams do not have months to implement change. She facilitates Working Genius debriefs that produce immediate task redistribution within the current campaign cycle.

Best for: Advocacy organisations, campaigning groups, and movement-building teams operating in high-pressure environments.

INDEPENDENT CONSULTANTS INTEGRATING WORKING GENIUS

Some consultants use Working Genius as one tool within a broader practice. They may not lead with the framework, but they integrate it when it serves the client's needs.

26. Vanessa Carter

Vanessa Carter is an organisational psychologist who uses Working Genius in leadership assessments and team diagnostics. She integrates it with other psychometric tools to give clients a fuller picture of team dynamics.

Her clients are typically larger organisations with 200-plus staff who want a comprehensive assessment of their leadership team before making structural changes.

Best for: Larger organisations wanting in-depth leadership team assessments that integrate multiple frameworks.

27. Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey is a business coach who uses Working Genius with his executive coaching clients. He introduces the framework when clients are struggling to delegate, when they are building out their leadership team, or when they are questioning whether they are in the right role.

He does not facilitate full team sessions. He uses Working Genius as a coaching tool to help individual leaders understand their own wiring and make better decisions about how they spend their time.

Best for: Senior leaders who want executive coaching that includes Working Genius as a tool for self-awareness and decision-making.

28. Natalie Evans

Natalie Evans is a team effectiveness consultant who uses Working Genius in conjunction with Lencioni's other models, particularly The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. She works with leadership teams who have trust or conflict issues and uses Working Genius to help the team see how their natural wiring is contributing to the dysfunction.

Her sessions are challenging. She does not facilitate surface-level team-building. She facilitates the hard conversations about trust, accountability, and the behaviours that are breaking the team.

Best for: Leadership teams with significant trust or conflict issues who need a facilitator willing to go deep.

29. Ben Mitchell

Ben Mitchell is a performance coach who works with high-performing teams in the corporate and sports sectors. He uses Working Genius to optimise team composition and to ensure that high-stakes projects have the right people in the right roles.

His sessions are short and focused. He does not spend time on theory. He maps the team, identifies the gaps, and recommends specific changes to improve performance.

Best for: High-performing teams in competitive environments who want to optimise team composition for speed and execution.

30. Laura Green

Laura Green is a facilitator who works with creative agencies and design firms. She uses Working Genius to help creative teams understand why some projects flow and others feel like a slog.

Creative teams are often heavy on Wonder and Invention but light on Tenacity and Enablement. Projects start strong and finish poorly. Laura helps teams see the pattern and adjust how they staff projects.

Best for: Creative agencies, design firms, and innovation teams who struggle with project completion.

If you lead a team in Auckland that knows something is off, one of these facilitators can help you name it. Working Genius is not the only framework, but it is the one that connects directly to the work your team does every week. The right facilitator makes the difference between an interesting session and a session that changes how your team operates.

Your next step is simple. Reach out to the facilitator whose experience matches your context. Most offer an initial conversation to determine fit. If you want to explore how Working Genius could work for your leadership team, contact Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.