About
We are three partners, Marshall, John and Alexandra, with different backgrounds. Our experience comes from dealing with complex problems over many years of running or consulting to global companies, governments, foundations and NGOs.
We know too well how difficult it is to address complex issues and how overwhelming and time consuming it can be. We also know that complexity is here to stay and there is an urgent need to boost people’s ability and confidence to deal with it.
Throughout our careers we grappled with complexity using the best available tools and techniques, but never found anything that met today’s needs. We were always seeking better solutions and decided to take matters into our own hands.
Nexial is the outcome of our effort to advance the state-of-the-art of processes and tools for dealing with increasingly challenging interconnected, multi-stakeholder problems. Nexial brings our learnings into a combined consultancy and technology solution, to equip people to navigate complexity with confidence as they make decisions, engage teams and make change happen on the ground.
The Name
“Nexial” derives from “nexus”: a connection or series of connections linking two or more things. At Nexial, building connections to bring knowledge and people together is at the heart of what we do: Collective Intelligence for Collective Action.
The word Nexial suggests a method of knowing that is integrative rather than analytic. It is about joining together all valid forms of knowing – scientific, experiential and creative – drawn from all relevant fields and disciplines, to create new insights and knowledge.
This method of knowing was described in Herman Hesse’s novel “The Glass Bead Game.” (1940’s) and a similar notion, by science fiction writer A.E.Van Vogt, under the name of Nexialism: the holistic integration of the sciences.
We like to think of ourselves as Nexialists, skilled in the science of joining together the knowledge of one field of learning with that of other fields, from multiple perspectives and practices, to achieve a new and shared understanding of ourselves and our environment.
The Team
Alexandra Kanitz
A varied international career fueled Alexandra with a passion for work which combines strategic thinking with her drive to make change happen on the ground. Enthusiastic and incurably optimistic, she believes ‘where there is a will, there is a way’. She thinks solutions and stirs up teams to do the same. She is Brazilian, and after 18 years based in Europe and working internationally, she enjoys the connections made all over the world, but decided that a small community, mountain lifestyle was in order for her and the family. Alexandra is a co-founder and the CEO of Nexial.
John Rasmussen
With a truly global career spanning 35 years and a natural knack for leadership, John is an inspiring business leader. He is an accomplished executive with extensive experience delivering business performance through leading and motivating multicultural teams. With expertise in strategy, marketing, operations, change leadership and performance management, John combines the ability to conceptualise and formulate strategy with a distinguished track record of operational and P&L delivery. John is a co-founder and director of Nexial.
Marshall Clemens
After working at a number of Boston-area technology companies, Marshall turned his attention to understanding the mechanics of complex socio-technical problems, and using visual tools to design more holistic and effective solutions. He has 25 years of experience in the application of systemic analysis and mapping to facilitate understanding, strategy-making and alignment for complex multi-stakeholder problems, including complex global issues such as obesity, mental capital, sustainable finance and value chains. Marshall is a co-founder of Nexial, lead system cartographer and designer of the Nexial system mapping platform.