I consider myself to be a global citizen and a scholar-practitioner who works in international development and writes about issues of great importance to me. After serving as a Commissioned US Foreign Service Officer, I became a consultant who continues to work in non-Western countries. I love working with young leaders in these countries who always have significant life lessons to impart to me. By working in conflict and post-conflict countries, I learned that leaders need to be relationship-builders with enormous empathy, compassion, and care. I have written about women leaders in Afghanistan, Myanmar, El Salvador, Morocco, and Bosnia-Herzegovina who taught me the power of the courage to break down barriers and make their voices heard. I have lived in India, Cameroon, Morocco, Romania, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Liberia, El Salvador, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, worked short-term in many more, and traveled in still more.

I tried hard to change the mode of designing and implementing foreign assistance to be a co-creation process rather than a dictatorial one, and one that recognized the complexity of adaptive not merely technical change. But I realized that unless the entire system that conscribed the possibilities for action radically altered, that change could only be scratches on the surface, not systemic or enduring.

I became keenly interested in the commons as I saw neoliberal capitalism increasingly chipping away at our resources and our lives and as greed overtook the world. I began my journey to search for alternative ways of living that were based on care and autonomy.

I started Dream Connect Global as a networking commons in which people around the world could support each other achieve their dreams by providing information and mentoring free of charge in an effort to improve the world through achieving individuals’ callings or purposes.

www.dreamconnectglobal.ning.com

I started Excellence, Equity, and Empowerment as a consulting firm to help companies and organizations achieve excellence through creating equity among their staff and empowering all staff to be leaders.

I am on the team of Leadership Kinetics, a consulting company led by Dr. Devin Paul Singh, designed to take leadership to the highest level.

https://leadershipkinetics.com

I studied philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley (BA) and the University of Chicago (MA). I earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MA in Biblical Exposition from Capital Seminary and Graduate School, and an MA and PhD in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University, where I am currently an Institute for Social Innovation Fellow. I also earned a Certificate in Organization Development Consulting from Georgetown University, a Certificate in Appreciative Inquiry, a Certificate in French Civilization from the Sorbonne, and am a Certified Performance Technologist (CPT).