Dr. Wallis has a lifelong history of interweaving academic pursuits and the practice of leadership in organizational settings. Most recently, she developed and taught graduate level curriculum in organization behavior and organization theory in several business schools with particular interest in transformational leadership and developmental action inquiry as a methodology for understanding and harnessing individual, group, and organizational levels of action. A central research interest is linking individual and senior leadership team development to improving organizational performance. One of her working papers, “Transformational and Individualized Leadership: A qualitative study of senior executive leaders” presents one study in which font-family: individuals in formally assigned, unique leader-follower dyads created mutually transforming relationships.

Prior to her full-time academic appointments she attained a wealth of experience from her 30 years as senior leader, project manager, consultant, supervisor, administrator, trainer and mentor, always with a larger goal of improving leadership capacity and organizational performance. She has served in numerous executive roles with leading healthcare insurance companies where she had administrative responsibility for $1 billion in medical expense including premium billing and collections, medical claims, and risk management. Other past affiliations include PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG Peat Marwick where she led cross-cultural teams in accomplishing critical organizational improvement and change initiatives. In her preferred consulting projects she works with senior executives and their teams within their unique organizational contexts to improve their efficacy in leading change and organizational learning in alignment with organizational goals and desired outcomes.

With a career as a scholar-practitioner, Dr. Wallis is committed to the study and practice of leadership that improves the quality of human lives, in small and large systems, in which personal and collective transformation are engaged, and where organizational goals are aligned with increasing social and economic justice. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (OBTS) and is a member of the Academy of Management. She presents regularly at the annual conferences associated with these organizations as well as at industry and client meetings.

Dr. Wallis earned her PhD from Fielding Graduate University in Human and Organizational Systems, her MSPH and MBA from UCLA, and her BS in Biochemistry from UC Davis.