Beatrice Benne, Ph.D.

Beatrice Benne brings to DSW Collective a broad range of skills including systems thinking, the application of living systems theory to organizational development, collaborative design, strategy, process improvement, and web-based technologies development and management.  She seeks to combine her skills to facilitate transformative change towards more sustainable and conscious business practices; she also has a strong interest in urban planning and the development of sustainable cities.

Most recently, Beatrice co-founded Transformative Sustainable Solutions, Inc (TSSI) – a Portland, OR start-up – where she served as Product and Marketing Manager for ProjectDX, an innovative web-based service enabling governments and NGOs to meet their environmental and sustainability goals through a community-wide engagement approach.  At TSSI, Beatrice worked with new customers to understand their stormwater management, energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and advise them on how to prepare for the launch of these programs in their community.

Prior to co-founding TSSI, Beatrice worked 10 years at Bechtel Corporation  – San Francisco, CA – where she served as a full-time Six Sigma Black Belt and worked on process performance improvement projects supporting diverse engineering and construction projects in the U.S. Prior to her Six Sigma assignment, she worked in Bechtel’s Information Systems & Technology group where she was responsible for the definition of short- and long-term strategies for diverse web-based technologies.

Beatrice is a fourth-year instructor with Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI), a distance learning MBA and Certificate program in sustainable business where she co-teaches a Strategy & Implementation course and a Systems Thinking in Action course.

Beatrice holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Architecture at the University of Berkeley, California. Her doctorate dissertation topic was “Managing Architectural /Engineering/Construction (AEC) Project Organizations at the edge of Chaos: An Analysis of AEC Project Adaptive Capacity from a Living Systems Perspective.” Prior to her Ph.D., Beatrice completed an M.S. from the Department of Architecture at the University of Berkeley, California, and a Diploma of Architect from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

In her free time, Beatrice enjoys reading, hiking, practicing Yoga and Nia dancing, and visiting with her family and friends back in her home country, France.