Renata A. Walton

Renata A. Walton is a trailblazer and thought leader with over 30 years as an organizational strategist with an acute focus on innovation, training, and communications. Within these impressive three decades, Dr. Walton has cultivated a legacy of empowering high-performing teams to embrace their inherent genius while fostering a culture of operational excellence. In her various professional roles in technology and health sciences, Dr. Walton has consistently demonstrated her visionary prowess in creating enduring programs and processes. Recognized for her unwavering dedication to progress and expertise, Dr. Walton is a sought-after speaker and has presented at two prestigious industry conferences, sharing her groundbreaking insights and innovative best practices. In 2020, Renata began her journey as a dedicated community activist in her hometown. Her commitment led her to the Board of Education in 2010, where she served for four years and assumed the mantle of President for a commendable two-year term. This culminated in the launch of the city’s first 7th through 12th-grade honors high school focused on the arts, technology, and scholarship. The school, Plainfield Academy for the Arts & Advanced Studies (PAAAS), has received several national and state recognition and achieved a 100% graduation rate. Not content with these impactful contributions, Dr. Walton's passion inspired her to establish a youth mentoring program for girls. She conceived and orchestrated the “Tiaras to Crowns” mentoring program, offering spiritually grounded life skills and practical learning experiences that nurtured young minds into empowered and compassionate individuals rooted in foundational Godly values. As a consummate learner, Dr. Walton embarked on a transformative doctoral journey, delving into the depths of Appreciative Inquiry methodology. Her focus was on the innovative concept of reverse mentoring within her organization – a dynamic approach to preparing Millennial knowledge workers for leadership roles. Through rigorous research, she ingeniously crafted a comprehensive framework that equips organizational leaders with the tools and strategies to seamlessly integrate reverse mentoring, fostering intergenerational knowledge exchange and fortifying the organization's future. Her knowledge and experience also extended to academia, where she guided aspiring scholars through their doctoral journey during two University of Phoenix-sponsored colloquiums. Currently, Dr. Walton is channeling her expertise into writing compelling scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and curricula, shedding light on the transformative power of reverse mentoring and the art of appreciative inquiry. Her scholarly efforts have not gone unnoticed, as she was nominated for Dissertation of the Year – a testament to her exceptional contributions to academia. She is a published author and is currently working on a collaborative anthology scheduled to be published in March of 2024.

Publications

Futureproofing a Resilient Leadership Pipeline Through Reverse Mentoring
Futureproofing a Resilient Leadership Pipeline Through Reverse Mentoring
Renata A. Walton. © 2024. 25 pages.
This chapter explores the phenomenon of reverse mentoring (RM) practices in helping leaders connect and engage with a multigenerational organization through appreciative inquiry....