Who We Are

Steve Boehlke

As President and Founder of SFB Associates he and his colleagues have helped leaders, without regard to position, become more influential and dynamic. Whether integrating newly merged organizational cultures or accelerating executive readiness, he asks the difficult questions by which excellent leadership grows and develops. His work has taken him inside many of today’s top performing corporations including Abbott Labs, Cargill, Nestlé, Bank of Montreal, General Mills, Exxon Mobil, HP, Medtronic and Merck. Steve is also a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

Steve continues to speak and write on the Politics of Creativity. He helps leaders access the “undiscussables” which lie just beneath the surface in every organization where attention is easily diverted and creative energy readily drained. His attention to organizational politics in R&D organizations renews trust and revives innovative activity. He is also the author of 50 Lessons on Leading for Those with Little Time for Reading.

Steve now focuses much of his time presenting workshops and keynote talks around the world. Steve is sought after for his ability to apply his leadership lessons to audiences as diverse as emerging leaders in Zagreb, Croatia, to scientists attending a collaboration conference at NASA’s Johnson Space center. Steve has a gift for applying intuition and skillful inquiry to inspire people to lead with greater awareness of themselves and their world. For Steve, success comes when others lead from within, follow their passion, and allow creativity and innovation to flow.Steve also serves as adviser and consultant to the African Leadership Academy based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Steve is a graduate of Princeton University, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He anchors his professional life with time and space for his personal passions: running marathons, adventure travel, gardening and spending time with his grandchildren. Steve resides with his wife, Mary, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Barb Buenz

Connecting, listening, and acting on behalf of her clients. These are the anchors from which Barb has built a successful career . She has the ability to see the big picture and at the same time execute on the details. Motivating teams to action and producing results are her strength.

As a leadership development professional, she led the vision, design and development of a cross–company virtual mentoring program that now empowers women in over 20 countries to reach their full potential. This experience led to an opportunity to partner with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to design a mentoring program for the Women Leaders Forum.

Using a combination of tools, business experience and intuition, Barb helps clients build high performing teams. As a certified facilitator of the Team Management System’s assessment tools, she uses these instruments and methodology to reveal individual and team dynamics that impact performance. Her most recent experience has been working with the senior leadership team of Merck & Company’s Strategy Office, design of a virtual learning offering for Global Learning and Development at Cargill and the creation of a mentoring program for emerging leaders at Gartner.

Prior to her work in leadership development, Barb spent 15 years inside organizations working in operations, operations management and sales and marketing. This broad professional experience has been invaluable in her ability to understand the critical business needs of her clients and to link the importance of leadership to business outcomes.

Barb and her husband Bill have three kids and both are active volunteers in youth sports and school.   In her spare time, Barb enjoys quality down time with her family and long runs with friends. 

Alex Portnoy

A powerful thinker, observer, and inquirer, Alex consistently challenges and invites his clients to push themselves to new understandings of self and the connection of spirit, mind and body.   He is skilled at building trust with colleagues and clients alike through the use of language.  By engaging in powerful conversations and making clear distinctions regarding the intent of words he opens up new possibilities for action.

Alex brings passion and a unique collection of business and life experience to his work.  Through his formal education in physics of semiconductors in Moscow and extensive work in systems architecture at IBM, Alex brings a scientific mind to the art of developing leaders. He has consulted to top CIO’s, division heads, business line managers and technical teams in the areas of structural and cultural transformation and business model innovation.   Alex co-founded and grew a highly successful, consulting firm focused on IT and business alignment, leadership development and achieving high-performance in information technology organizations.   His clients have included General Motors, AEGON, American Express, Merck and Wells Fargo among others.

His leadership development approach is anchored in ontological coaching and somatic leadership development techniques, stressing to his clients that their capacity for leadership depends on the alignment of their values with their actions.  Alex also holds a Masters Degree in Management of Technology from the University of Minnesota.

Alex lives in Minnesota with his wife Alena and two daughters and enjoys practicing Tai Chi and Yoga and learning. 

Greg Ranstrom

Greg Ranstrom, brings over 20 years of experience in consultation, design, and facilitation of collaboration and leadership effectiveness solutions for a range of large, global enterprises like Cargill and Merck. He has also been successful with start ups and local firms. Greg designed and delivered training and development programs at key inflection points of growth for Invitrogen and Schilling Robotics.

Greg’s passion lies in the leadership required for cross-boundary collaboration and he thrives on teaching leaders how to flip organizational chaos and conflict into creative cross-functional solutions. He is the author of the Maximize® collaboration workshop that has been licensed around the world.

Greg maintains a close relationship with the American Leadership Forum (ALF) designing and leading its year-long Fellows Program and acting as faculty for many regional chapters. ALF’s high-level, cross-sector development program offers an uncommonly powerful learning laboratory for understanding the nature and demands of 21st century leadership.

Greg started his career with Princeton-Blairstown Center running Outward Bound® inspired programs for inter-city youth and Princeton faculty, staff, and students. Greg lives in Bend Oregon with his wife, Alisa, and their three children, Madeline, Claire, and Cole. An active community volunteer, Greg recently launched CivilSay™ a process for citizen engagement in important community issues.