Welcome to Brilliance@Work, a series of profiles about stellar collaboration professionals and their best practices at work.

Chris Dornfeld is President and Co-founder of Bonfyre, a mobile, social engagement platform used by people, brands and companies around the globe. Prior to Bonfyre, Chris served in executive roles in several start-up companies, including a venture-backed health services start-up that grew to over 500 people in 18 months.

Join Chris at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Strategic Internal Branding Conference, April 19-21 in Scottsdale, Arizona as he presents “Leveraging Social & Mobile Communications Internally to Build Community, Camaraderie and Culture.”

In the meantime, read on to learn more about Chris and the importance of collaboration in transforming organizational culture.

Peggy L. Bieniek, ABC: What are you most interested in and speak most enthusiastically about?
Chris Dornfeld: Reinventing the corporation and the development of Human Resources Business Intelligence. There is an incredible change happening as companies evolve their business models, organizational structures and their strategies to empower instead of managing people. Working with corporations to communicate, measure and understand this change is really interesting.

PB: What are some of your past and current projects that you are most proud of?
CD: Past project: While CIO for the City of St. Louis we created a government performance program that created millions of dollars of savings and productivity benefits. It was the first step in creating a better culture in the day-to-day operations of government and has positive impact on hundreds of thousands of people.

Current project: Although we are small, Bonfyre has an incredible culture and team. I am really proud of how incredibly our team performs every day and all the innovation occurring in every area of our company.

PB: What role does a social mobile platform play in transforming organizational culture?
CD: Companies are beginning to understand there are three areas of internal communication:

• Company to people
• System to people
• People to people

Most organizations focus on the first (company to people), but do not realize people to people is where engagement, trust, collaboration, empowerment, sentiment and innovation are all affected the most. A social mobile platform like Bonfyre is specifically and uniquely designed to support the people to people communication category – the source of company culture.

PB: What will people gain from attending the Strategic Internal Branding Conference?
CD: I am excited about the Strategic Internal Branding Conference for three reasons:

• The topic is timely and relevant to companies.
• The size of the conference is intimate so you can create meaningful connections with people.
• There are some incredible thought leaders attending, so the information, case studies and learning opportunities are excellent.

PB: What is most important for people to understand from your conference presentation?
CD: The power and potential of building an inclusive process to align culture and transform an organization.

PB: What is your contact information for questions, comments, ideas?
CD: Email me at Chris@bonfyreapp.com, follow me on Twitter @dornfeld, or join Bonfyre for the conference and start a conversation.

Register for the Strategic Internal Branding Conference. Together we’ll learn about using authentic internal branding communications to create brand champions, build culture and engage employees to live and deliver on the brand promise.

Since I’m a conference supporter, just mention Starry Blue Brilliance when you register to receive a $200 discount. 🙂

Please share this information with your networks. The Twitter hashtag is #ALI_IntBranding.