John N. Mangieri is pres-ident of the Center for Leadership and Personnel Development in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has served as faculty member and university administrator at a number of institutions, where he has held a variety of positions including university president. A Fulbright Scholar, Mangieri has consulted to and conducted leadership programs at numerous organizations in the United States and countries around the world.
Cathy Collins Block is a professor of education at Texas Christian University and has been a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame. She was the chairperson of the National Commission to Infuse Thinking Development into the Curriculum of the Schools of the United States. Block has been honored by being named one of the 2,000 Most Outstanding Scholars of the 21st Century.

Mangieri and Block have jointly written seven books as well as a standardized test, the Yale Assessment of Thinking, published by Jossey-Bass.