About us

Two co-founders. A small team, on purpose.

Chill & Shine is run full time, year-round, by Dr. Josh Maurer. Dr. Yaa Benyawarath joins full time every summer, when she's out of the classroom. We keep it small so every engagement gets people who have actually done the work — not a rotating bench of junior facilitators.

Josh · year-round Yaa · every summer
Dr. Josh Maurer, co-founder of Chill & Shine
Runs engagements year-round

Dr. Josh Maurer

Co-founder · Strategy & ROI

Josh runs Chill & Shine full time and is usually the first person you'll talk to. He focuses on the business case: making sure every AI initiative has a clear return and can be maintained by the team you already have, long after we leave.

He started as a public accountant at Wipfli and Clifton Gunderson — audit, financial statements, internal controls — then earned an MBA from the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and a PhD in strategic management and entrepreneurship from Washington State University. He has consulted for a Fortune 500 company on AI implementation, presenting directly to its top management team.

His peer-reviewed research on generative AI and entrepreneurship appears in the Journal of Business Research, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, the Journal of Small Business Management, and the Journal of Innovation & Knowledge. He still teaches part time, which keeps him honest about how people actually learn.

He specializes in low-code and no-code AI that managers and frontline staff can adopt without a technical background. He's also a certified flight instructor — calm under pressure is, quite literally, his training.

What Josh brings to your engagement

  • The ROI case your leadership will ask for, built before training starts
  • Workshops and advisory any time of year
  • Low-code / no-code workflows your team can run without IT
PhD, Strategy & Entrepreneurship Fortune 500 AI implementation Wipfli LLP Clifton Gunderson LLP Journal of Business Research Certified flight instructor
Dr. Yaa Benyawarath, co-founder of Chill & Shine
Leads summer programs

Dr. Yaa Benyawarath

Co-founder · Curriculum & AI training

Dr. Yaa is an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at Winona State University, where she teaches AI, analytics, and information systems — and builds with these tools daily, not just for the slides. She designs the curriculum behind every Chill & Shine program.

Before academia she spent a decade in industry: analyzing banking systems at IBM and Standard Chartered Bank, leading Six Sigma projects at GE Capital, and consulting on national ICT policy for The World Bank. She holds a PhD in MIS from Washington State University, completed the MIT Sloan + CSAIL executive program in AI and business strategy, and is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt.

Her peer-reviewed research on generative AI — curriculum design, industry adoption, where it's actually creating value — is what the training is built on. She also created Brain & Bot, a free library of 250+ educational games and lessons, because she believes this knowledge should be accessible to everyone.

What Yaa brings to your engagement

  • Curriculum built for your stack, your policies, and your people
  • Summer cohorts and faculty & leadership programs, taught live
  • An educator's discipline: no hype, no jargon, nobody left behind
MIT Sloan + CSAIL — AI Strategy Six Sigma Green Belt The World Bank IBM GE Capital Standard Chartered Bank

How we split the work

Who you'll work with, and when

We both earned our PhDs at Washington State University and have co-authored peer-reviewed research together. The business runs the same way: one of us is always here, both of us when the work calls for it.

Year-round

Josh

  • Discovery calls and scoping
  • Half-day workshops
  • Advisory and ROI planning
  • Follow-up office hours
Behind every program

Yaa

  • Curriculum and materials design
  • Research that shapes the method
  • Faculty and higher-ed expertise
  • Live teaching every summer
Summer

Both of us

  • Calm AI Operator cohorts
  • Faculty & leadership tracks
  • On-site engagements
  • Now booking Summer 2027

Supporting team

Fresh eyes on your process

Some engagements need someone to map the workflow before anyone touches the AI.

Natthanan

Operations & Process Analyst

Supply chain major with a sharp eye for process bottlenecks. Natthanan maps operational workflows and identifies where automation can eliminate repetitive work.

Brings a fresh perspective to every client engagement — if a process doesn't make sense to someone seeing it for the first time, it probably needs to be redesigned.

Between us The World Bank IBM GE Capital Standard Chartered Bank Wipfli LLP Fortune 500 AI consulting MIT Sloan + CSAIL Six Sigma Green Belt Two PhDs — Washington State University

Why we do this

Better work from calmer people

We believe improving how people work is one of the most meaningful things you can do. When a team stops spending hours on tasks a machine can handle, they get to focus on judgment, creativity, and the work that actually matters to them.

We're educators at heart. We don't deliver a solution and leave — we make sure your team understands the why behind every change, not just the how.

Next step

Start with a conversation

Training, consulting, or just figuring out what AI can realistically do for your organization — a discovery call is free and honest.

Book a discovery call