About the Founders
Next Move delivers a proven, repeatable process that helps people move from intention to action, in community, at scale.
We built it for a world where people feel increasingly isolated, navigating greater uncertainty, change, and pressure than any previous generation. Moving forward together, with structure, support, and a process they can return to, has never mattered more.
Shari Simon
Business Strategist · Board Leader · Leadership Advisor · Former SVP Strategy, Marketing & Sales, Oracle Corporation
Shari spent the first part of her career at Oracle, rising rapidly from sales representative to Senior Vice President with global responsibility across strategy, marketing, partnerships, and consulting. At the height of her career, her sister was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, followed soon after by the death of both of Shari's parents. These events caused her to pause and reflect deeply on what mattered most. In 2006, she chose to leave Oracle to spend more time with her sister — and after her sister's passing in early 2007, welcomed her teenage niece into her family.
Over the next decade, Shari channeled her strategic and leadership experience into board governance, civic leadership, and executive advisory work, working with leaders across public, nonprofit, and educational organizations. She kept seeing the same pattern: people navigating life on their own, because they had been taught that was how it should be done — and paying an enormous price for it. Shari recognized it because she had lived it too. It left her with a question she couldn't let go of: what if the belief that we have to navigate life alone wasn't inevitable? And what if instead, we learned how to move through life feeling more joyful, connected and supported? Next Move became the answer.
Maura Wolf
Facilitator, Coach & Educator · Program Designer ·
Author · Adjunct Faculty, Saint Mary's College of California
Maura spent the early years of her career as a nonprofit and civic leader at the center of the national service movement — instrumental in establishing Do Something, the Points of Light Foundation, the Corporation for National Service, and Public Allies. Burnt out from sixty-plus-hour workweeks and no longer sure what she was building toward, Maura's body decided for her — in her early twenties, an illness brought everything to a halt. She stepped away and spent a year in deep conversation with women about how they made decisions about their lives — because she needed that understanding herself.
What she found became the foundation of everything that followed: clarity, personal wisdom, and the process of making sense of transition. It led to two decades of coaching and consulting, sixteen years teaching at Saint Mary's College of California, and the authorship of What Matters Most: Everyday Leadership at Home, at Work, and in the World. It pointed Maura toward a question that would define her work: is there a simple process people could follow to gain clarity, increase their self-knowledge, and move forward with greater ease? Next Move became the answer.
Together
For well over a decade, Shari and Maura have been testing and refining the Next Move Method, in organizations, communities, and their own lives. The result is a program they stand behind completely. These are the core beliefs that guide them, and that shape every element of Next Move:
We Need Each Other
Life is more meaningful, and more fun, when we create time to connect and reflect with others.
Context Matters
Understanding your full context is what makes goals realistic and action possible.
Clarity is Transformational
When we truly know something, we can act on it — and that shift from stuck to clear is one of the most powerful forces for forward movement.
Micro-moves Create Momentum
Breaking action down into small steps — ones that feel doable rather than overwhelming — is what spurs real, lasting momentum.
Curiosity Leads to Creativity
Approaching ourselves and others with curiosity rather than judgment opens up possibilities that judgment closes off.
Structure Makes it Happen
Clarity and forward movement happen when we create consistent, intentional space — to reflect, to connect, and to act.