Bob Lazzarini joined the Antioch University faculty after serving for more than two decades in a variety of professional roles outside of academe — including those in management, executive leadership, and board governance – in service to for-profit, public, and nonprofit organizations. He began his professional career working for the LA Olympic Organizing Committee as a personnel supervisor, transitioning thereafter to work in the training & development industry.

He briefly worked in financial services as an operations manager but soon opted to pursue a more creative, entrepreneurial opportunity, helping to establish a direct marketing and advertising agency and working as a copywriter, account manager, production supervisor, and marketing strategist. He was subsequently recruited by a regional consulting firm as a marketing communications, public relations & media relations counsel serving national and international nonprofit organizations. This experience with the nonprofit sector led Bob to accept an invitation to direct a multi-million-dollar, multi-state capital campaign where he provided leadership for more than 2000 volunteers. Upon the campaign’s successful conclusion, Bob was hired by the nation’s leading fundraising firm as senior counsel to executive leaders of the company’s national and international nonprofit clients and to serve as a member of the agency’s management team.

He was later recruited to be the Director of Strategic Planning for a California-based software subsidiary of an international technology company based in the Netherlands, later serving as Executive Vice President & General Manager responsible for multi-state corporate operations, human resources, sales, and marketing. He was later recruited to be the founding Vice President of Business Development for a linguistically-based search technology firm where he served as Interim CEO prior to the firm’s acquisition by Nuance Communications, a subsidiary of Microsoft. As a capstone to his eclectic and circuitous career prior to joining the Antioch faculty, Bob founded and grew a small sales & distribution business serving the food & beverage industry, representing an award-winning line of Canadian frozen food products in the California territory. For more than two decades, Bob has provided limited consulting and coaching services to individual, team, and organizational clients throughout Southern California.

Bob graduated with honors from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), then earned his MBA with a specialization in Organizational Behavior & Administrative Theory from the University of Washington Foster School of Business, where he served as the student commencement speaker. He has been engaged on multiple occasions as a coach and team leader at the Global Institute for Leadership Development, as a communications coach with the Annenberg Leadership Academy for CNN Heroes, and as a presentation coach with Social Venture Partners. Bob is a former officer of the board of the Center for Nonprofit Management in Southern California, a consulting, training, and information resource provider serving more than 1,000 not-for-profit organizations. For many years, he was a volunteer member of the curriculum design and instructional team for the Riordan Leadership Institute, a program of the Southern California Leadership Network and the Greater Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. He is certified in adult learning methodologies by the American Society of Training and Development.