A Pasadena Civic Leader Brings Her Leadership Book Home

For more than two decades, Denise Nelson Nash has worked inside Pasadena’s institutions — running cultural programs, serving Caltech for over 15 years, and now guiding governance at Scripps College. That accumulation of experience is what she’s brought to the printed page.

Trinity of Leadership: Learners, Thinkers, Tinkerers — co-authored with Dr. Trisha Beck and published this spring through Akers Follett Press, the imprint the two co-founded — argues that effective leaders share three qualities: they remain relentless learners, engage deeply as thinkers, and experiment boldly as tinkerers.

On Saturday, May 30, Nelson Nash and Beck will bring those ideas to the Lamanda Park Branch Library in a free public conversation as part of the Pasadena Public Library’s established “Authors and Their Journeys” series.

The event runs from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at 140 S. Altadena Drive. The program will explore how the book’s six authors — Nelson Nash and Beck joined by Sharon Counts, Michael Miller, Herminio L. Perez, and Lucas Welter — transformed a shared academic cohort into a writing partnership while navigating the specific challenges of collaborative authorship. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Nelson Nash’s Pasadena roots go back decades. She served as Executive Director of the Cultural Planning Division for the City of Pasadena and held multiple roles at Caltech, including Assistant Vice President for Campus and Community Relations, over a 15-year tenure. Since 2013, she has been Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College. The Pasadena Museum of History recognized her as a Contemporary History Maker; she has also received the City of Pasadena Raymond Pitts Human Relations Award.

Beck brings more than two decades of healthcare leadership experience to the collaboration. Both she and Nelson Nash hold doctorates from New York University’s Leadership and Innovation program — the shared academic journey that first brought the six co-authors together in 2020, during the earliest months of the pandemic.

“Trinity of Leadership is not a checklist or a formula,” Nelson Nash said, according to the publisher. “It’s an invitation to stay curious, to think deeply, and to keep learning, especially in times of uncertainty.”

A day earlier, on Friday, May 29, Nelson Nash and Beck will appear at Crowell Public Library of the City of San Marino, 1890 Huntington Drive, San Marino, for a program titled “Joyful Living, Happy Life Program: Legacy is a Verb,” running from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.

Both events are free and open to the public. Registration for the May 30 Pasadena event is available at Eventbrite (eventbrite.com/e/1984235174822); registration for the May 29 San Marino event is available at eventbrite.com/e/joyful-living-happy-life-program-legacy-is-a-verb-tickets-1986678148823. The book is published by Akers Follett Press (akersfollettpress.com), co-founded by the authors.

The book’s premise — that leadership is not a credential earned once, but a practice grounded in curiosity, rigorous thinking, and ongoing experimentation — is the distillation of six careers, including one that has unfolded, in large part, in Pasadena.