Institute for Healthcare Leadership

Emotionally intelligent consultants, educators, and researchers.

Tom Wojick, MA, Lead Consultant. An expert in Relationship-Centered Leadership, Tom brings over 18 years in healthcare administration to assist clients in increasing performance.

Joan M. Vitello, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA, Faculty Member. An internationally renowned nurse leader, consultant, speaker, educator, and researcher, Joan currently focuses on innovation, transformation and leading collaborative teams in health care.

Joshua Freedman, Director. A cofounder of Six Seconds' EQ Network, Joshua provides practical emotional intelligence tools and a systems approach to improving organizational climate.

Todd Everett, MBA, Program Manager. Drawing on 25 years of corporate leadership, Todd offers a unique blend of business acumen and emotionally intelligent consulting.

Alice C Hagenmueller BSN, MSN, Project Advisor. Recently Nurse Executive/Administrative Director for a 391-bed hospital, Alice has proven experience creating a workplace climate that supports performance and retention.

Carina Fiedeldey-Van Dijk, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist. With extensive expertise in emotional intelligence, customer satisfaction, and employee behavior research, Carina provides compelling evidence of program effectiveness.

Anabel Jensen, Ph.D., President. With over 30 years of educational expertise, Dr. Jensen is known for her compassionate wisdom and commitment to hands-on learning.

Karen McCown, MA, Chairman. After training as a nurse, Ms. McCown has made a lifelong commitment to spread emotional intelligence in schools and organizations.

Team Biographies

Tom Wojick, MA -- Lead Trainer

Tom is a trainer, consultant, and coach with over 18 years experience as a senior executive in behavioral medicine and health care. After earning a master’s degree in counseling education from the University of Connecticut, Tom served as a leader in several health care organizations. In 1998, in addition to his executive duties, Tom developed and implemented an Institute for Mind/Body Medicine with Harvard Medical School's Mind/Body Institute.

Tom’s consulting and training clients are varied, including business, health care, government and educational organizations and individuals. An adjunct faculty member at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business Management Institute, Tom presents a range of trainings and courses to a range of clients including Disney and Texaco. Participants of his workshops and presentations have characterized his work as inspirational, life changing and motivational.

Joan M. Vitello, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA -- Faculty

An internationally renowned nurse leader, consultant, speaker, educator, and researcher, Joan currently focuses on innovation, transformation and leading collaborative teams in health care. Her past work has included: consultation to develop new patient-focused delivery models, clinical and administrative positions, numerous presentations and publications, as well as membership and leadership in professional organizations, foundations and health care related boards. She is the Past President of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.

Joan received her PhD in Human and Organizational Systems from the Fielding Graduate Institute, where her dissertation research explored the leadership practices and emotional intelligence (EI) of nursing leaders. She has subsequently published two articles on EI in major journals. Joan is the recipient of many distinguished healthcare awards.

Joshua Freedman -- Director

Director of Programs for Six Seconds EQ Network, Joshua creates positive and productive schools, businesses, and communities through his outstanding facilitation and teaching skills.

Josh co-developed Six Seconds’ EQ Certification Training which he has delivered on five continents to hundreds of consultants, educators, coaches, psychologists, and change-agents seeking practical tools for learning and teaching emotional intelligence. Josh builds collaboration and effectiveness as Chair of the International NexusEQ Conference and Editor of ‘EQ Today’ magazine.

Joshua is the co-author of the Handle With Care EQ Activity Book, the EQ Learning Journal, and two volumes of the Self-Science EQ Curriculum.

Todd Everett, MBA -- Program Manager

Todd has over 25 years of experience building high performing teams. After graduating from Stanford Business School, he was a senior marketing officer for a leading national real estate corporation. He went on to become VP of sales and marketing for a high growth software company, a financial services organization, and the world's #1 active travel company. He is an expert on using emotional intelligence to improve performance and develop exceptional leaders.

Alice C Hagenmueller BSN, MSN -- Program Advisor

After graduating Duke University's nursing program, Alice went onto earn her master’s degree in nursing administration from the Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Nursing. She served as a staff nurse, clinical instructor and as the assistant director for the department of surgical nursing at the Medical College of Virginia. She became the interim associate director for the Division of Medical/Surgical Specialties Nursing for MCVH before joining Bon Secours Health Systems as Director of Inpatient Services and Nursing Education.

Alice was promoted to the role of Nurse Executive/Administrative Director, Patient Care Services for their 391-bed flagship hospital in Richmond, VA. During her tenure she initiated and accomplished improvements in master staffing plans and skills for nurse managers in budget preparation and variance analysis. And off particular note, she reorganized the nursing leadership structure, which resulted in improved staff, physician, and patient satisfaction.

Carina Fiedeldey-Van Dijk, Ph.D. -- Senior Research Scientist

Carina specializes in the statistical identification and relation of the intricate dynamics that drive customer and employee behavior for purposes of marketing and advancing the business of institutional clients. She actively works with clients to transform her blend of numerical and conceptual insights to corporate implementation. In studying customer performance, Carina takes into account not only demographic, socio-economic, cultural, acculturation and environmental characteristics, but importantly also motivational and attitudinal determinants, as well as educational, communicational and workplace issues. Her research expertise includes media-effect studies, sample efficacy, customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty, response-rate patterning, consumer conversion, custom profiling, brand imaging, and demographic and personal-styles segmentation or clustering. Her contributions cover a wide range of sectors.

Carina has given 41 presentations at scientific conferences (12 international), written nine books/chapters in books and 32 articles in journals and newsletters. She has also compiled hundreds of validation, reliability and norm reports in the form of executive summaries, marketing pieces, and developmental and technical reports, and has served on professional boards and as external editor. A seasoned lecturer, she has conducted numerous workshops and group sessions using a variety of aptitude and psychological tests, including the Myers-Briggs (MBTI), OPQ, EQ-i, MSCEIT, Strong Interest Inventory, MAB and many others, and has patented a structured observation technique.

Anabel Jensen, Ph.D. -- Six Seconds' President

With over 30 years of pioneering work in the field of emotional intelligence education, Anabel is an inspiring and caring speaker who helps people find the best in themselves and each other. Anabel says people pay attention to less than 30% of what you say, but 70% of what you do, so she models the lessons she teaches -- even her graduate psychology courses at Notre Dame de Namur University are experiential, learned-centered, and emotionally engaging.

Anabel was the principal of Nueva School when Daniel Goleman came and wrote about the model EQ program there; under her guidance the school also won two Federal Blue Ribbon Awards for Excellence in Education. As the Founding President of Six Seconds EQ Network, Dr. Jensen has co-authored four books on teaching EQ, written numerous articles, and trained over 10,000 educators and leaders around the globe.

Karen McCown, MA -- Six Seconds' Chairman

Karen began her involvement with emotional intelligence when she founded the Nueva School (Hillsborough, California). In planning the school she met with educators, political & business leaders and Nobel Laureates to consider the educational needs of our society. She saw that the central foundation of a school should be not simply giving students knowledge, but giving them the opportunity to develop wisdom. She created the nation's first emotional intelligence curriculum, Self Science, a program she facilitated for nearly three decades.

Karen has worked extensively with educators from around the country and around the world. She was honored as Educator of the Year by the California Association of the Gifted. She has presented at thousands of symposia & conferences. She has served on a broad range of trustee and advisory boards for social, emotional and mental health. Karen earned her MA at the University of Massachusetts.