Stephen Payne

Background

About Stephen Payne

Yes, those are packs of gum in my hand in my LinkedIn avatar and yes, while it's hard to quickly explain here, I have spent nearly three decades simply being known simply as Gum Guy by everyone from students to Supreme Court Justices thanks to journeys at three different institutions of higher education in two different countries (and thanks, as well, to travels and work across a dozen or more countries, excluding Singapore, where Gum Guy is subject to fines). It's been a happy and fulfilling sideline to my other professional roles (various titles indicated below) over the years, which has meant that I've given out gum widely and frequently and with great joy, to students, moms, dad and occasional Board of Trustees members.(These is indeed a longer and deeper discussion and philosophy to go with those nearly three decades as Gum Guy and the thousands and thousands and thousands of sticks of Wrigley's gum, given out a stick at a time*.) Being Gum Guy (and also an administrator responsible for enrollment, marketing and public affairs roles) means being committed to building effective relationships, sometimes even in and especially amidst the smallest of moments, and those skills are key in some of the national and international partnership building assignments I've received, from networking with state elected officials and government ministers to building and nurturing partnerships throughout Asia, Africa and South America. Beyond all of that, and in more concrete terms, I've sought to- build lasting and effective relationships - ability to understand challenging work targets irrespective of restricted resources - have happy and productive experience in developing strategic and successful partnerships - seek to practice a passionate, principle, servant-centered approach to leadership [ Specialties: Branding, social network-based communication, partnership development, carefully curating and communicating information, leading diverse teams, seeing the big picture, listening and effectively responding to key stakeholders even amidst crisis, patiently building effective and long-lasting international partnerships, and being able to see, understand and pursue the connections, interconnections and big picture beyond that.]*Personal Best Gum Distribution (there was not a trophy, it turns out): individual sticks of Wrigley Gum, both sugared and sugar free, distributed in one day.