Pioneer in technology-supported facilitation of large meetings, now all online. Engagement Producer. Principal of Covision Design LLC. Founder and senior consultant, Covision Inc., leading it for 30 years. OD and Strategy Consultant.

Lenny is a pioneer in technology-supported facilitation of large meetings. He founded Covision in 1985 as a video production company and since 1992 has led CoVision through 3000 client meetings and guided the company through many stages of innovation and growth. 

Lenny began the company’s journey toward large groups in 1990 while producing a video introduction for IBM’s initial foray into groupware, called TeamFocus. It was software for supporting small groups in thinking together. The notion was interesting, but the software was complicated and impractical in live meetings. Soon after, Lenny began experimenting with Jim Ewing of Executive Arts with easy-to-use, simplified groupware known initially as “Council” and later, “Covision.”

In 1997, CoVision released a web-based collaboration platform for face-to-face and dispersed teams. Over thousands of meetings, the team perfected the design and facilitation of processes that build mutual understanding.

Notable projects include Listening to the City (700 & 5,000 participants in NYC in the aftermath of 9-11, 2002), the Opening General Session of the World Economic Forum in 2005, three Annual Meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative 2005-9, the New York Forum–Africa, in Gabon, 2012, and countless senior leadership meetings. 

Lenny is the co-author of the best-selling “Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making” with Sam Kaner and in 2014 he co-authored a second book chronicling Covision’s journey of learning over two decades, “Virtuous Meetings: Technology+Design for High Engagement in Large Groups.” 

Recently, Lenny has been providing Covision augmentation to Zoom meetings for when serious thinking together is needed in dispersed teams. 

After leaving Covision in 2017, he has continued supporting leaders with expert facilitation in challenging situations through Covision Design LLC.

Lenny was a successful freelance photographer for ten years before starting CoVision, specializing in photography of people at work, at all levels and sent on global assignments through hundreds of organizations, and to hundreds of large meetings. This sparked his fascination with meetings which still burns today.