About
Spark Labs and Ron Dimon
What actually drives value here, and what are we going to do about it?
Ron Dimon is the founder of Spark Labs, a decision design studio based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work starts from one question: what actually drives value here, and what are we going to do about it?
He spent 30 years answering that question with systems. He helped build enterprise performance management at Hyperion, worked on Anaplan’s founding team, and led Deloitte’s global Connected Planning practice. He is the author of Enterprise Performance Management Done Right and Connected Planning.
Today he answers it with people. Spark Labs advises leadership teams on strategy and metrics. It designs go-to-market and value-selling systems, facilitates off-sites, and runs practitioner-led labs. It also mentors founders and convenes civic work across divides. Every engagement uses his Blueprint value map and ends with a one-page plan.
Ron teaches at UNM’s Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship, serves on the board of Creative Santa Fe, and is a graduate of Second City’s improv program.
One question, asked for thirty years
- With systems
- At Hyperion, Anaplan and Deloitte: planning platforms that connect strategy to numbers to action.
- With a room
- The people who own the problem, a structured conversation, and a written commitment.
- With a map
- The Blueprint, a stakeholder network, a priority-alignment view.
- One person at a time
- Mentoring founders and executives.
- For a city
- Civic work in Santa Fe, where the people who must decide together do not report to anyone in common.
The tools changed. The question did not.
Built it, wrote it, runs it now
- Built it
- Started as a 19-year-old programmer at Deloitte in Toronto. Nine years at Hyperion Solutions (later Oracle), helping build what is now called enterprise performance management. Early work on Anaplan’s founding team. Managing Director in Deloitte’s Digital Finance Technology practice, where he built the global Connected Planning practice. Six startups co-founded, with two exits and one IPO.
- Wrote it
- Enterprise Performance Management Done Right (Wiley) and Connected Planning. A book on facilitation and breakthrough sessions is in progress. Conference speaker on strategy, data, value selling and the future of work, including ODTUG, OAUG and Ohio State, and PechaKucha Night Santa Fe, Vol. 29, at the Lensic in May 2026.
- Runs it now
- Faculty at the UNM Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship, leading its 8-month accelerator. Board member, Creative Santa Fe. The Santa Fe OED program: 36 sessions and about 180 participants statewide, May to September 2026.
Partners
UNM Anderson School of Management · NM Innovation Hub · NMSU Arrowhead Center · Creative Santa Fe · NM Angels
Clients
Clients served through Hyperion, Deloitte and Spark Labs. High tech Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Cisco, SAS
Financial services Bank of America, New York Life, Manulife, AIG
Consumer goods Coca-Cola, Kraft, Dyson, Herman Miller
Healthcare GE Healthcare, AbbVie
Government US Navy, US State Department, State of Arizona
Universities UVA, UNM, McMaster
Membership groups Greater Toronto Hockey League, Big Brothers Big Sisters
Networks
Communities Ron belongs to and works alongside.
Why
Ron’s guiding principle is the possibility that we are all here for one another. It is why the studio works Socratically: we would rather a room find its own answer than be handed ours.