What if everything you know about leadership prepared you for the past?
Six accomplished leaders from the arts, business, education, healthcare, and non-profit management step into that question and choose growth over stagnation.
The Authors
Trisha Beck, Denise Nelson Nash, Sharon Counts, Michael Miller, Herminio L. Perez, and Lucas Welter draw on decades of leading diverse teams, organizations, and communities through disruption and change. Together, they bring leadership knowledge from across industries that's personal, practical, and useful.
The Big Idea
Tomorrow’s most effective leaders model three essential qualities:
LEARNERS who set aside assumptions and embrace continuous growth
THINKERS who engage deeply with complexity
TINKERERS who experiment boldly and adapt fearlessly
What Readers Will Find
Through authentic storytelling and shared wisdom, they reveal the immeasurable qualities of leadership—curiosity, courage, and commitment.
This is leadership for the journey, not the destination, offering readers a living practice, not a checklist.
Our Mission
Founded by Dr. Denise Nelson Nash and Dr. Trisha Beck, Akers Follett Press is dedicated to writing and publishing high-quality books that inspire and engage readers around the world.
The Trinity Story
In 2020, a pandemic and subsequent chaos and crisis spread throughout the globe. The world went on pause. At the same time, a cohort of accomplished cross-sector professionals was on an academic journey together, and this is where our story, as the co-authors of this book, begins.
New York City. May 10, 2025. Rosa Mexicano Restaurant.
Six of us gathered around a table crackling with anticipation. You could feel it — standing on a threshold, knowing something significant was about to happen.
We had invited our friends to join us on a book-writing journey—something none of those around the table had done before. They came because they trusted us. Not because we had a perfect plan or a guaranteed path to publication, but because in our Circle of Trust, we had learned that the best discoveries happen when you're willing to venture onto unfamiliar roads together.
Michael, the storyteller. Lucas, the ideator. Herminio, the humanist. Sharon, the cultivator. And us, the co-authors and organizers, who believed this circle of individuals could become something more.
This book emerged from our shared academic journey, from the circle we formed, from the conversations before and after dinner, from the trust we built by showing up as learners even when the world expected us to be experts. What you hold in your hands is not just our individual insights, but the collective wisdom of six people willing to connect the dots forward together.
Two visionaries, Drs. Lisette Nieves and Noel Anderson, co-founders of the New York University EdD Leadership and Innovation program, brought us together. The program reinforced that leadership is a journey — a journey of discovering and uncovering what lies beneath. We learned to set aside assumptions and truly see what was in front of us. We learned to think more expansively and deeply. We recommitted ourselves to being Learners and Thinkers. And we tinkered.
We tinkered with concepts, approaches, thoughts, data analysis, and perspectives. Along the way, we forged lifelong friendships, tested big ideas, and reconfirmed our commitment to transformative partnerships, forging meaningful impact. Together, we became the leaders our complex world needs — practitioners who think like scholars, scholars who act like practitioners, and change agents who understand that our greatest challenges require connected solutions. This was the gift given to us, and now we share this gift with you in The Trinity of Leadership: Learners, Thinkers, and Tinkerers, a book about the journey, not the destination.
Trisha Beck and Denise Nelson Nash
March 2026