Jane Hartman Frankel counts bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania among her educational achievements, but the Cheltenham native now living in North Wales has never stopped learning.
In fact, Frankel views education as never ending.
“It’s the key to our world and sustaining ourselves,’’ she said.
Frankel, who joined GPSEG in 2005 and recently was named to the organization’s board of directors, carries her learning is life mantra to her professional career.
Not long after joining GPSEG – her goal, successfully achieved, was to develop a network – Frankel founded The Art of Performance, LLC. Her company is an organizational design and development firm, focused on business results and growth through improvements in customer service, strategic planning and employee development. A sole proprietor, Frankel draws together subject matter experts to contribute to projects based on clients’ needs to improve specific areas of their businesses. The goal is to produce ongoing high performance and predictable business results.
“Learning is the most critical thing a business can do,” she said. “Performing is not a shot in the dark. It’s a very structured art form.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge The Art of Performance faces is helping businesses to balance short-term and long-term results. Frankel said that what’s good for a company in the short term isn’t always the best thing in the long run.
“Often, they’re not opposed to it,” she said. “They just perceive they don’t have the time.”
An ultimate goal of The Art of Performance is to contribute to people, in general, being self sufficient on the job and self-sustaining in their own minds. If they are able to do that, Frankel said, the organization they belong to will be able to do that as well.
More recently, Frankel created The Breakthrough Consortium, a collaboration of senior-level subject matter expert practitioners who provide workshops and advisory services to small- to mid-sized business leaders in need of experienced assistance. These business leaders focus on change initiatives to facilitate systematic growth in their businesses.
Prior to founding The Art of Performance, Frankel worked at Vertex, Inc., a tax research and compliance company. Her roles there – which focused on corporate business development, organizational design, customer service and education – helped plant the seeds for The Art of Performance.
When Frankel’s not on the job, she often really still is, imparting her love of learning. She serves as adjunct professor of business communications, change management, entrepreneurship and international organizational behavior at Temple University, Arcadia University and Chestnut Hill College.
And when Frankel is not on the job or in the classroom, there’s a good chance, she’s involved with GPSEG. Aside from her new board position, she serves as co-chair of the Mentor Program, one of the organization’s more active committees.
This fall, the Mentor Program will partner with iPRAXIS – the nonprofit that creates and fosters opportunities in science and technology for disadvantaged communities -- to provide mentors to help students compete in science fairs in their schools. Mentors will help middle-school students develop research skills, follow scientific method and present their projects.
That program’s on top of the annual participation in Temple University’s Be Your Own Boss Bowl business plan competition. GPSEG members serve as advisors to many of the competition’s entrants.
Finally, in her rare free time Frankel can be found jogging the streets of North Wales, listening to classic music or upping her knowledge base by thumbing through a biography.
“I see myself as a lifelong learner and think others can be as well.”