Digital Pioneer Cesar Gon Joins the Nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute’s Board of Directors

July 2021 - Gon,CEO and co-founder of CI&T, replaces John Toussaint, MD, founding CEO of Catalysis, who leaves as planned after 12 years of service

Nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a global leader in lean management thinking, practice, and innovation, announced that digital technology veteran Cesar Gon has joined its board of directors. Gon is CEO and co-founder of CI&T, a leader in driving digital transformation for global brands, and brings over 26 years of executive leadership and experience in accelerating growth and business impact to LEI. 
 
Gon brings to the LEI board deep knowledge of how lean management and digital technologies work together. Since 2007 when CI&T began using lean management principles internally, it has pioneered the application of lean continuous improvement to digital transformations. Today, CI&T is a digital solutions partner for some of the world's biggest companies, helping them drive growth and continuous innovation across business, people and technology. The company has operations across North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. 

“Cesar’s appointment reflects LEI’s commitment to studying and impacting the evolving digital technology industry,” said board Chairman Peter Ward, professor of operations management at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

“It’s an honor to join Lean Enterprise Institute’s Board of Directors and I look forward to working closely with the leadership team to continue to support its mission,” added Gon. “I’ve experienced first-hand the tremendous impact of lean principles within CI&T and through the digital transformation journey for so many leading organizations.” 


Pre-teen Programmer
Gon taught himself computer programming by the age of 11 and at 13 sold the code for a chess game to a tech magazine. At 23, he co-founded CI&T – short for collaborate, innovate, and transform – with friends in a garage. Today, CI&T is a global company with 4,000+ employees, providing large enterprises with the strategy, research, design, and engineering services needed to accelerate digital transformations. 

To navigate a rapidly changing business environment while maintaining its high growth rate, CI&T in 2007 embraced lean management as its core management system.

An active investor in venture funds and startups, Gon is also a columnist for MIT’s Sloan Management Review Brazil and co-author of the book “Faster, Faster: The Dawn of Lean Digital”. In 2019 he was awarded EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Brazil. Gon holds a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Campinas, Brazil. Besides tech and lean management, he loves wines, cigars, and football. 

Lean Work Lauded
Ward thanked departing board member Dr.Toussaint for his years of dedication, insights, and efforts to create high-quality, lower-cost healthcare systems. 

“Since you began your service on the board in January 2009, you have been a vital source of wisdom about how LEI can be managed to better achieve its mission of making things better by advancing lean thinking and practice,” Ward said. “LEI and the broader lean community also have benefited from your many experiments adopting lean thinking and practice in healthcare settings and leading its transformation.”

A former healthcare system CEO, Dr. Toussaint was the founding CEO of Catalysis, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to positively transforming the healthcare industry through organizational excellence. His healthcare improvement work has been documented in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Harvard Business Review, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and many other media outlets. He has authored and co-authored four books on how to improve healthcare, most recently Becoming the Change.


About the Lean Enterprise Institute
Lean Enterprise Institute Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Boston, MA, with a mission to make things better through lean thinking and practice by helping companies create more value and prosperity while consuming the fewest possible resources. Founded in 1997 by management expert James Womack, PhD, LEI conducts research through co-learning partnerships with companies, teaches on-site and online workshops, publishes books and ebooks, organizes conferences, and shares practical information about lean thinking and practice at https://www.lean.org.

About CI&T
CI&T is a digital specialist, a partner in end-to-end digital transformation. 
As digital natives, we bring a 26-year track record of accelerating business impact through complete and scalable digital solutions. With a global presence of 4,000 professionals in strategy, research, data science, design, and engineering, we unlock top-line growth, improve customer experience and drive operational efficiency.

---