Kriss Deiglmeier
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Passions and Voice

Get to Know Kriss

 

Highlight Reel

Kriss Deiglmeier is a dynamic board director, CEO, and thought leader who drives growth and innovation. Known for her strategic leadership and transformative approach, she has served on numerous boards, helping them evolve by recruiting new members, restructuring committees, and improving governance practices. Her extensive experience spans both public and private sectors, with a particular focus on delivering value across industries and geographies.

An avid traveler, Kriss's passion for adventure and love of learning has shaped her belief system and fueled her commitment to positively impacting the world. Her diverse personal and professional experiences inspire her to create a better future for everyone’s family, friends, and communities. 

fun facts

  • Kriss believes you grow when you “repot” yourself. She has worked in the corporate, philanthropy, nonprofit, social enterprise, and academic sectors. 

  • She has backpacked around the world and visited more than 50 countries and counting.

  • Kriss has presented nationally and internationally on, social innovation, stakeholder economy, ESG,  responsible AI, design thinking, and impact investing. 

  • Each year, she picks a “word for the year” and strives to live by it — believing firmly in keeping things simple.

  • Kriss’s core beliefs include:  “Learn something new every day” and “Be adventurous. Be afraid.”

  • She loves walking meetings and agrees with Nilofer Merchant that “sitting is the smoking of our generation.” 

  • She prefers research articles over what seems like an infinite number of “blogs” 

  • She co-authored the most cited article on social innovation, Rediscovering Social Innovation—with over 3,200 citations. 

  • Her family, friends, and colleagues bring her joy and keep her going. 

 

A Good Story's Not the Whole Story

Using stories to raise awareness and inspire action seems to be all the rage. The New York Times bestselling book Made to Stick, by Stanford GSB professor Chip Heath and his brother Dan, has been at the forefront of uncovering and advocating the use of stories to get an audience to remember your ideas, programs, or products. And now presentations from the likes of TED, PopTech, and almost every cause, nonprofit presentation, and brochure I can remember in the past few years is all about stories, stories, stories …

On the one hand, research clearly supports the notion that we can get our messages to “stick” using stories. So isn’t this an improvement to plying our audiences with boring facts and figures that they’ll only forget — along with the point we’re trying to make? Aren’t we more likely to move people to action because stories connect us on an emotional level and motivate us to care, donate, or volunteer?

This all sounds nice but, unfortunately, there’s a downside to great storytelling.

We live in a world in which time, money, and talent are limited resources. This leads to competition for ideas, funding, people, and partnerships. In most cases, stories can’t adequately convey whether we’re using our resources wisely or not. And that’s a serious thing. We must remember that resources get applied to ideas and organizations that have proven their effectiveness at solving big social and environmental problems through good old-fashioned metrics.

So we must not be lured into providing our constituencies with great stories alone. We have to offer solid information to support the tale about that intriguing person who has overcome immense obstacles to help save the world. A good example of this weave happened at the recent Poptech Conference.

Ned Breslin, CEO of Water for People, gave a great presentation that started with a compelling story of a child losing his life to a failed water pump — driving home the massive failure of the majority of water relief efforts around the world. While putting into perspective the fundraising water stories we’ve heard for years, it still was just a story. But Breslin followed it with hard facts, data, and examples that showed listeners why we need to think about and invest differently in access to water programs in the developing world.

In closing remember, a story is “a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale” (Wikipedia). We want to do more than amuse. We want to inform. And we want to make sure that we’re fully conveying what our organizations are about so that we’re sure to get the resources we need.

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