Brian D. Summerfield

Brian Summerfield is on a mission to disrupt, influence, and be a catalyst in manufacturing, while building and growing leaders, functions, and organizations.

He strives to be a leader and follower, student and teacher, reader and writer. An engineer by trade, manufacturing leader by choice, and hardened lean practitioner by habit with over 20 years of experience across a variety of industries and companies from Fortune 500 firms to leading private organizations as well as a number of SME businesses. After straightening his life out as a youth, he started out working in a foundry, then into machining roles and progressing through the ranks with a building passion for manufacturing while working in parallel to engineering studies.

His drive, training, experience, and practical application (failures and successes) has blessed him with the ability to become a subject matter expert in many tools while honing the ability to lead the often most challenging cultural transformations. He is been fortunate with the privilege to lead and coach many other team members over his career, improving his ability to help them become better leaders. Brian's ability to simplify strategies and tools and their practical, no nonsense application while focusing on the most important element, people, has proven effective from plant floors to offices to boardrooms. In the end, it is all about people, and leaders are everywhere. Brian truly believes we just need to find them and free them.