The Origin

Every organization forms people. Most never ask what kind.

Brian Jenkin, PhD, spent two decades working across business and education — and in human rights, healthcare, and technology — on strategy, growth, and organizational change.

The same pattern kept surfacing, in different forms. A school expected students to use technology with judgment but rewarded nothing that formed it. A company asked its team for a realistic market size but rewarded the number that impressed investors — and left sales chasing a target no one could hit. The specifics changed. The gap did not.

The challenge was formation. Organizations invested heavily in what people knew and what they could do, without asking what they were becoming in the process. The gap between intention and outcome was not a planning failure. It was a design failure.

VIA Forma was built on that insight: people are formed by the systems, relationships, and environments they inhabit.