Our People

Khotan Shahbazi-Harmon is the founder and CEO of Conscious Leadership Alliance. Khotan is a visionary social entrepreneurship and C-Suite leadership consultant. She specializes in social entrepreneurship and business start-up, rapid growth and innovation, and organizational resilience and renewal. Her community service focuses on “social good” at the cross-section of entrepreneurship, K-16 education, health, equity and workforce pathways of prosperity. Khotan is a multiple award winning journalist, and was on a tech start-up team whose venture went viral with a million users. Khotan created a community MBA program that helped very low-income women get off public assistance through entrepreneurship; and currently serves as the co-director of the Education Implementation Team of Austin Mayor’s Taskforce on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities. Khotan currently serves as the Chair of the Board for PeaceX Inc. (formerly known as Peace Through Commerce).

Philomena Blees, J.D, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Peace Through Commerce and head of the Thought Leadership division. Philomena is a founding board member of the Board of Directors of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., serving now as Board Member Emeritus.  She is also a graduate of the Shakti Leadership fellowship offered by the Shakti Leadership incubator of Peace Through Commerce.

In education, Philomena co-founded a school for gifted children in Austin, Texas called ACE Primary.  She also co-founded the Eanes Education Foundation and Eanes Talented and Gifted Association.  She is also the President of the Texas alumni chapter of the University of Hawaii Alumni Association.

In law, Philomena served as an attorney in the office of General Counsel at the Texas State Treasury. Prior to this, she was a partner in private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii with an emphasis in tax, estates, business formation, and real property. Philomena received her law degree at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and was 1st in her first year class. She received the Hornbook Award for Outstanding Scholastic Achievement and American Jurisprudence awards in contracts, real property, and civil procedure, and served as Comments Editor of the University of Hawaii Law Review.  She is a member of the State Bar Associations of Texas and Hawaii, and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Tax Court, Federal District Court, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In creativity and meditation, Philomena is an active member of the American Creativity Association, serving as President.  She has chaired past national conferences and co-founded the Austin chapter known as ACA-Austin Global.  She also co-founded a centering prayer group which has met weekly since 1999 and is deeply committed to a daily practice of meditation.

Personally, Philomena loves running, hiking, dancing, music, movement, reading, her meditation practice, and especially enjoys time with family and friends.

You can reach Philomena at [email protected]

Michelle’s role at Peace Through Commerce is to promulgate the advancement of Matrix of Peace Systems and programs. She is an experienced strategic business leader, author, published researcher, and social entrepreneur. Her experience spans senior roles in higher education, finance and professional services.

Michelle’s career includes spearheading global business development for an online diversity tool; managing Fortune 100 accounts in 26 countries; and interviewing women across the U.S. for her book, The Orange Line: A Woman’s Guide to Integrating Career, Family & Life.

While residing in Australia, Michelle’s strategy and roadmap at Monash University resulted in an Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry award and strengthened an Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency citation for gender equity. Michelle received the Vice Chancellors’ award for General Excellence, and her research is published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources.

Michelle co-founded four organizations: the Victorian WorkLife Association, a think tank showcasing employer best practices; Beaconhills College; City of Pakenham Children’s Service; and Eliza Cottage Early Learning Center. Michelle also testified before the Australian Senate in connection with its inquiry into child care in higher education.

Michelle is a Board member of Peace Through Commerce Inc. and eChange Endeavors. She holds a M. Mgt (systems thinking) and; B. Ed. Studies from, Monash University, AU; and a Cert. Welfare Studies from, Institute of Social Welfare, AU. Michelle is a Certified CMC® Coach and completed the Program on Negotiation for Executives, Harvard Law School, MA.

You can reach Michelle by contacting her at [email protected].

Philomena Blees, J.D, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Peace Through Commerce and head of the Thought Leadership division. Philomena is a founding board member of the Board of Directors of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., serving now as Board Member Emeritus.  She is also a graduate of the Shakti Leadership fellowship offered by the Shakti Leadership incubator of Peace Through Commerce.

In education, Philomena co-founded a school for gifted children in Austin, Texas called ACE Primary.  She also co-founded the Eanes Education Foundation and Eanes Talented and Gifted Association.  She is also the President of the Texas alumni chapter of the University of Hawaii Alumni Association.

In law, Philomena served as an attorney in the office of General Counsel at the Texas State Treasury. Prior to this, she was a partner in private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii with an emphasis in tax, estates, business formation, and real property. Philomena received her law degree at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and was 1st in her first year class. She received the Hornbook Award for Outstanding Scholastic Achievement and American Jurisprudence awards in contracts, real property, and civil procedure, and served as Comments Editor of the University of Hawaii Law Review.  She is a member of the State Bar Associations of Texas and Hawaii, and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Tax Court, Federal District Court, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In creativity and meditation, Philomena is an active member of the American Creativity Association, serving as President.  She has chaired past national conferences and co-founded the Austin chapter known as ACA-Austin Global.  She also co-founded a centering prayer group which has met weekly since 1999 and is deeply committed to a daily practice of meditation.

Personally, Philomena loves running, hiking, dancing, music, movement, reading, her meditation practice, and especially enjoys time with family and friends.

You can reach Philomena at [email protected]

Michelle’s role at Peace Through Commerce is to promulgate the advancement of Matrix of Peace Systems and programs. She is an experienced strategic business leader, author, published researcher, and social entrepreneur. Her experience spans senior roles in higher education, finance and professional services.

Michelle’s career includes spearheading global business development for an online diversity tool; managing Fortune 100 accounts in 26 countries; and interviewing women across the U.S. for her book, The Orange Line: A Woman’s Guide to Integrating Career, Family & Life.

While residing in Australia, Michelle’s strategy and roadmap at Monash University resulted in an Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry award and strengthened an Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency citation for gender equity. Michelle received the Vice Chancellors’ award for General Excellence, and her research is published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources.

Michelle co-founded four organizations: the Victorian WorkLife Association, a think tank showcasing employer best practices; Beaconhills College; City of Pakenham Children’s Service; and Eliza Cottage Early Learning Center. Michelle also testified before the Australian Senate in connection with its inquiry into child care in higher education.

Michelle is a Board member of Peace Through Commerce Inc. and eChange Endeavors. She holds a M. Mgt (systems thinking) and; B. Ed. Studies from, Monash University, AU; and a Cert. Welfare Studies from, Institute of Social Welfare, AU. Michelle is a Certified CMC® Coach and completed the Program on Negotiation for Executives, Harvard Law School, MA.

You can reach Michelle by contacting her at [email protected].

Patti Brennan is Peace Through Commerce’s accountant. You can reach her at [email protected]

Mike Reid leads projects and smiths words for all kinds of publications. In addition to serving as the marketing consultant for Peace Through Commerce, he is a marketing strategist for the Institute for Humane Studies.

Mike lives in the wide-open prairies of Canada with his wife, 2 toddlers, and a rotating cast of “rescued” caterpillars and frogs.

Research Analyst
Mikki – or Micaela, depending on where she is – is an Italian-American polyglot with a passion for emerging economies. Recently graduated, she participated in a capstone semester abroad with SIT: International Honor Program in Uganda, India, and Brazil where she studied the effects of “social impact” business on communities. She has worked in Port-Au-Prince, São Paulo, San Antonio, and San Francisco, and recognizes the positive and negative effects of well-meaning businesses. Mikki loves data, design, and drumming.

Nadia Auch is a consultant to Peace through Commerce, Inc., contributing to our programming, implementation of Matrix of Peace Systems, and strategic planning. For more than 15 years she has led organizations such as Launch SA for the Mayor’s Office of San Antonio, designing its Venture Challenge and other programs. In 2009, she started up the Center for Peace and Commerce at the University of San Diego, creating its Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge. She holds a Master of Science from University College London in International Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts in Peace Studies and Spanish from The Ohio State University. She currently also consults Social Innovation, Inc.

Nadia has worked in Latin America and Mexico as well as California, Texas and Ohio serving on multiple nonprofit boards and community initiatives. She co-authored a study on measuring social innovation impact, published in the Johns Hopkins Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and has presented at international conferences and workshops.

Richard Barrett is an author, speaker and internationally recognised thought leader on the evolution of human values in business and society. He is the founder and chairman of the Barrett Values Centre®, a Fellow of the World Business Academy and Former Values Coordinator at the World Bank.

He is the creator of the internationally recognized Cultural Transformation Tools® (CTT) which have been used to support more than 6,000 organizations on their transformational journeys. To date, more than 5,000 change agents, consultants and coaches have been trained by the Barrett Values Centre to use the Cultural Transformation Tools in over 50 countries

Richard has been a visiting lecturer at the Consulting and Coaching for Change, Leadership Course run by the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and HEC in Paris. He has also been an Adjunct Professor at Royal Roads University, Institute for Values-based Leadership, and a visiting lecturer at the One Planet MBA at Exeter University.

Richard Barrett is the author of The Values-Driven Organization: Cultural Health and Employee Well-Being as a Pathway to Sustainable Performance, A New Psychology of Human Well-Being: An Exploration of the influence of Ego-Soul Dynamics on Mental and Physical Health (2016), The Metrics of Human Consciousness (2015),  Evolutionary Coaching: A Values-based Approach to Unleashing Human Potential(2014), The Values-Driven Organisation: Unleashing Human Potential for Performance and Profit(2013), What My Soul Told Me: A Practical Guide to Soul Activation(2012), Love, Fear and the Destiny of Nations: The Impact of the Evolution of Human Consciousness on World Affairs(2011), The New Leadership Paradigm (2010), Building a Values-Driven Organization: A Whole System Approach to Cultural Transformation(2006), Liberating the Corporate Soul: Building a Visionary Organization (1998), and he is a contributing author toPsychometrics in Coaching (2012). 

Dr. Don Beck was a teacher, geopolitical advisor, and theorist focusing on applications of large scale psychology, including social psychology, evolutionary psychology, organizational psychology and their effect on human sociocultural systems. Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) was conceived and led by Dr. Don Beck, a leading global authority on value systems, societal change, and stratified democracy, SDi is an advanced extension and elaboration of the biopsychosocial systems concept originated by the late Dr. Clare W. Graves of Union College, New York, and later developed as Spiral Dynamics – a model that Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine rather grandly dubbed  “The Theory that Explains Everything.”

Joyce Beck Ms. Beck is the Co-Founder, with her husband Ken, of the Crossings in Austin, Texas. The Crossings was a destination wellness spa, learning center and meeting place located in the Texas Hill Country. Joyce participated in the design, building, and operations of the Crossings from 1999 to 2010 when the Crossings transitioned to new owners. The current name of the property is Travaasa. Joyce and her husband are now working with a start up company in developing a game about archetypes called Identity Pursuit.

Prior to the Crossings, Joyce was a psychotherapist for 32 years, working initially in medical social work in oncology and nephrology departments in hospital settings. She then moved to in-patient and out-patient psychiatric work after receiving her certification in bioenergetics and post graduate work in pyschodrama. Her career as a psychotherapist ended with 11 years of private practice, specializing in emotional and physical abuse, self-empowerment, and couples therapy.

Joyce has served for 6 years on the board of directors of the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, on the board of Austin Social Venture Partners, and served for 7 years on the board, including a year as President, of the Austin Area Inter-religious Ministries (AAIM) which has recently been re-named IACT. Joyce is also a previous board chair of PTC and is currently acting as Co-CEO with Philomena Blees.

Joyce has been married for over 45 years and has two children and three grandchildren. Her passions are her family, friends, continued learning, and serving in the fields of interfaith dialogue, interspirituality, and empowerment of the individual.

Michael Strong is Co-Founder of the parent nonprofit to Peace Through Commerce, Inc. (Freedom Lights Our World (FLOW), Inc.) which he co-founded with John Mackey, the co-CEO of Whole Foods Market. Michael is the lead author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems , was co-authored with John Mackey, Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Hernando de Soto, Co-Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and others.

Michael is currently head of school at the innovative school startup called “Khabele + Strong Incubator”, serving grades 6-12 in Austin, Texas. KSI is a new kind of institution, serving both as a school and an entrepreneurial incubator. Michael is also working on the entrepreneurial creation of legal systems based on his 2009 article “The Legal Autonomy of the Dubai International Financial Centre: A Scaleable Strategy for Global Free Market Reforms” and his blog posts at “Let a Thousand Nations Bloom.” Michael’s work is featured in academic journals (The Journal of Business Ethics, Economic Affairs, Critical Review, etc.), specialty publications (Microfinance Insights, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Ethics, etc.) and in media reaching popular audiences (The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, RealClearPolitics, Barron’s, etc.) He serves on the board of The Seasteading Institute and the Advisory Boards of The Lifeboat Foundation, Trilinc Global, the Moorfield Storey Institute, and is a mentor for developing world entrepreneurs for the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development.

Prior to his work on Conscious Capitalism, Michael spent fifteen years as an educational entrepreneur, creating several high-performance private and charter schools, including one named the 36th best public school in the U.S. on the Washington Post’s Challenge Index. The author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice, Strong has consulted for hundreds of schools around the world. Michael was educated at Harvard, St. John’s College, and the University of Chicago.

Amber Chand’s Amber’s mission is to celebrate women as a force for peace and prosperity around the world and to support women as entrepreneurs who are rebuilding their lives in the shadows of war and conflict. The inspiration behind her global work is a result of her personal journey as a refugee who fled from Uganda in 1973 during Idi Amin’s tyrannical dictatorship. Through these years, Amber’s interest in peace-building through women’s enterprises has led to three primary areas of focus:
Rwanda: In 2003, Amber travelled to Rwanda at the invitation of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in her role as co-founder of Eziba, a U.S. based retailer that marketed artisan made products from around the world. Her initial meetings with Rwandan basket weavers in Kigali led to the successful launch of the first “peace baskets” in North America, woven by both Hutu and Tutsi widows as symbols of reconciliation. Due to overwhelming customer response and media attention, the Peace Baskets quickly became recognized as one of the top non agricultural exports from Rwanda. Amber was personally congratulated for her work by President Kagame with whom she had a private audience later that year.
Israel-Palestine: Inspired by the Rwandan weavers, Amber and colleagues from the Business Council of Peace, a nonprofit organization based in New York, traveled to the Middle East in 2004 to launch a peace-building initiative between Israeli and Palestinian women. Amber created the design and oversaw the development of the Jerusalem Candle of Hope – a luminary candle with tea light created by Russian Jewish immigrant women in Nazareth accompanied by an embroidered bag created by Palestinian women in Bethlehem. Today, the Jerusalem Candle of Hope is regarded as a unique and remarkable peace building initiative celebrating women as peace builders in a region torn by conflict.
Darfur, Sudan: In 2008, Amber launched the first basket weaving enterprise at Kassab camp, one of the largest IDP camps in Western Darfur. Concerned that women had to leave the relative security of the camps to seek firewood where they were attacked by local militia, the basket weaving initiative was created as a viable alternative to this dangerous reality – one which enabled the women to earn a livelihood and support their families. In partnership with Darfur Peace and Development, a nonprofit organization based in Washington D.C, 238 women have participated in the program to date with 3000 baskets having been exported to the United States and sold through the Women’s Peace Collection. With the production infrastructure now in place for export, there are plans to expand the program to additional weavers in neighboring IDP camps.

Paula D’Arcy is a writer, playwright, retreat leader and conference and seminar speaker. In 2001 she established Red Bird Foundation, which supports the growth and spiritual development of those in need throughout the world, including men and women in prison. The foundation has sponsored two international gatherings of women known as WOMENSPEAK, conferences which honor the woman’s voice as a force of peace and healing for the world. A former psychotherapist, Paula survived the loss of her husband and young daughter in an accident in 1975. She was three months pregnant at the time. Among her best-selling books are Gift of the Red Bird, Waking Up to This Day, and When People Grieve.

Felora Ziari is a motivational speaker as well as retreat leader. Her values and expertise are grounded in the transformative powers of self-knowledge, goal setting and empowerment. In 2011, Ms. Ziari and a partner opened a Bistro/Coffee Shop in Austin, Texas with plans for further expansion. Ms. Ziari is an Electro-Mechanical Engineer educated in Oxford, England. For over 16 years, she has worked for a number of diverse companies, in varying engineering and management capacities, in the field of Nuclear Instrumentation. She left her position as an engineer to pursue a field of service. The driving force for her particular area of service, since adolescence, is her passion for highlighting and peacefully bringing to the forefront of social consciousness, the principle of the equality of women and men and empowerment of women and girls. While working as an Engineering Manager, she formed a women’s group, witnessed firsthand the power that education, encouragement, and empowerment has on women and thus, ACT Women was born from that seed. By aiding women to look beyond the superficial, Ms. Ziari’s natural talent lies in the ability to accompany women on their particular and very personal journey through the exciting transformation of aligning and harmonizing the mind, heart, and body. Ms. Ziari is active in many community organizations. She currently serves as chair of the board of directors of United Nation Association (UNA-USA). She is the past President of the Board of Directors of Interfaith Action of Central Texas (i-ACT).

Timothy Fort is Professor of Business Law and Ethics at Indiana University. Formerly he served as Executive Director of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility and held the Lindner-Gambal Professorship of Business Ethics at George Washington University Business School. He currently co-leads a Task Force on Business and Peace with the United States Institute of Peace. He is an Academic Advisor for the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, the Director of the Program on Business and Peace at GW’s Business School, and is also a Lecturer at the George Washington University School of Law. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Notre Dame and his J.D. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He is the author of Business, Integrity, and Peace (Cambridge University Press, 2007), which won the Best Book Award at the 2010 Academy of Management Conference. He also authored Prophets, Profits, and Peace (Yale University Press, 2008). He is co-author of The Role of Business in Fostering Peaceful Societies published by Cambridge University Press in 2004. Oxford University Press published his book, Ethics and Governance: Business as Mediating Institution, in 2001. His more than sixty articles and book chapters have appeared in a wide array of top journals in the field. In 2003, he was given a World-wide Award for Academic Leadership by the Beyond Grey Pinstripes report sponsored by the Aspen Institute. He held the Bank One Corporation Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, where he taught from 1994-2005. In 1998, he was named the Outstanding Junior Faculty Member of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (“ALSB”). He has also been awarded student-based Faculty Teaching Awards from George Washington University’s Executive MBA Program and from Loyola University Chicago. On a research basis, the ALSB has awarded him, individually or with co-authors, three Outstanding National Conference Proceeding Paper Awards, six Distinguished National Conference Proceeding Paper Awards, two Ralph Bunche Awards for best International Paper, a Holmes-Cardozo Award for best overall conference paper, and a Ralph Hoeber Award for Research Excellence. He has served on the editorial boards of The Academy of Management Review, American Business Law Journal, and Business Ethics Quarterly and has edited six special journal issues, including these just mentioned three as well as The Journal of Business Ethics and The Vanderbilt Journal of International Law (twice). He served on the U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Economic Empowerment in Strategic Regions and has worked directly with the Department of Commerce, the World Bank Institute, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Business For Peace Foundation in Oslo, Norway. He also served briefly on the initial Board of Governors of the Corporate Responsibility’s Officers Association.
His work focuses on the legal and ethical frameworks necessary to regularize ethical business behavior with particular attention to matching neurobiological human capabilities with communal sizes necessary for enhancing ethical behavior, how a teleological goal of sustainable peace is a realistic goal for businesses, and how religious and spiritual belief impact business behavior. On a lighter note, he is under contract with Houghton-Mifflin to write, The Afterlife of Dogs, tentatively scheduled for release in Summer 2011. He and his wife Nancy live in Silver Spring, Maryland with her father, their three children (adopted from China and from Ethiopia as well as one of their own doing), and a Basset Hound. He co-owns a working family farm in Illinois with his siblings that traces its family ownership, in part, back to the 1800’s.

Nitsan Gordon is an Israeli Jew and the founder and director of “Together Beyond Words”. She is trained and experienced in dance/movement therapy, healing touch and multi-level listening techniques – all of which are used as part of the Together Beyond Words Educational Model. For several years, she has led courses on understanding and healing prejudice in three Colleges; as well as workshops and trainings using the BW model in Israel and the United States. Nitsan is the mother of two children.

Dr. Jean Houston is a scholar, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, is one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time. She is long regarded as one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement.

In 1965, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Dr. Houston founded The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal teacher of the Mystery School, a school of human development, a program of cross-cultural mythic and spiritual studies, dedicated to teaching history, philosophy, the New Physics, psychology, anthropology, myth and the many dimensions of human potential. This school is in its 24th year and takes place on both the East and West Coasts. She leads an intensive program in Social Artistry with leaders coming from all over the world to study with Dr. Houston and her distinguished associates. This program in innovative leadership strategies is now in its 6th year. She is the Founder as well as the Program Director of the International Institute for Social Artistry.
She is a prolific writer and author of 25 books including A Passion for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible Human, Public Like a Frog, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, and Manual For A Peacemaker. Her book Jump Time explores a new Global Paradigm and speaks boldly of a regenesis of human society. The questions raised in this book and the exciting suggestion of possibilities are producing new pioneers – Social Artists – working on the frontiers of this new global society.
As Advisor to UNICEF in human and cultural development, she has worked to implement some of their extensive educational and health programs, primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh. In 1998, Dr. Houston worked with leaders throughout New Zealand to help bring forth that nation’s promise. With other international agencies, she has implemented the social development of indigenous people through the integration of their unique cultural gifts into their health and educational systems. In September of 1999, she traveled to Dharamsala, India as one of the distinguished group chosen to work with the Dalai Lama in an informative and advisory capacity. Her advisory work with the Dalai Lama has continued.
Dr. Houston has also served for two years in an advisory capacity to President and Mrs. Clinton as well as helping Mrs. Clinton write, It Takes A Village To Raise A Child. As a high school student she worked closely with Mrs. Roosevelt on developing strategies to introduce international awareness and United Nations work to young people. She has also worked with President and Mrs. Carter and counseled leaders in similar positions in numerous countries and cultures.
She has worked with several corporations including Xerox, Beatrice Foods, General Electric and Rodale Press. She has also worked with governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and the Department of Energy.

Since 2004 she has been working with the United Nations Development Program, training leaders in developing countries throughout the world in the new field of social artistry. To date this training has occurred in Albania, the Easern Caribbean, Kenya, Nepal, and the Philippines. In March of 2007 she traveled to Nepal where she trained leaders from 12 Asian countries in the principles of social artistry in order to effect positive gains in the millennium development goals.
A past President of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, she has taught philosophy, psychology, and Religion at Columbia University, Hunter College, the New School for Social Research and Marymount College, as well as summer sessions in human development at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of British Columbia. She was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Oklahoma in that university’s Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program in 1982.
In addition, Dr. Houston presented the William James Lecture at Harvard Divinity School, the Orr Lectures at Wilson, and the Alfred Stiernotte Lecture in Philosophy at Quinnipaic College. She has spoken at hundreds of colleges and universities all over the world.
She has chaired, among many other academic and scientific convocations, the 1975 United Nations Temple of Understanding Conference of World Religious Leaders. Under the sponsorship of the Department of Commerce, she helped to initiate and then chaired the 1979 Symposium for leading government policy makers.
Her work has been the core of a myriad of teaching-learning communities throughout the world. In particular, in 1984, she created a national not-for-profit organization, The Possible Society, to encourage the creation of new ways for people to work together to help solve societal problems. Giving seminars to large groups of citizens in 17 cities throughout North America, she established ongoing teaching-learning communities devoted to the enrichment of their citizens and the betterment of their cities.
In 1985, Dr. Houston was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Association of Teachers Educators. In 1993, she received the Gardner Murphy Humanitarian Award for her work in psychology and the INTA Humanitarian of the Year award. In 1994, she received the Lifetime Outstanding Creative Achievement Award from the Creative Education Foundation. The following year, she was given the Keeper of the Lore Award for her studies in myth and culture. In 1997 she was made a Fellow of the World Business Academy and in 1999 she received that Pathfinder award from the Association of Humanistic Psychology. She was given the prestigious Millennium Award in 2000 from Magical Blend Magazine as well.
Her PBS Special, A Passion for the Possible, has been widely shown and publicly acclaimed. Her book of the same name was drawn from the program and published by Harper San Francisco in August of 1997.
A powerful and dynamic speaker, she holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations worldwide. Jean Houston has worked intensively in 40 cultures helping to enhance and deepen their own uniqueness while they become part of the global community. She has lectured in over 100 countries and is the recipient of a multitude of awards. She works at all levels of leadership and her ability to inspire and invigorate people enables her to readily convey her vision – the finest possible achievement of the individual potential. That same ability lets her share with her audiences and students throughout the world, the excitement of that possibility.
She holds a B.A. from Barnard College, a Ph.D. in psychology from the Union Graduate School and a Ph.D. in religion from the Graduate Theological Foundation. She has also been the recipient of honorary doctorates.

Teri Johnson-Sapp is the principal broker and owner of RESaustin real estate. She has been an avid investor for over 30 years and has managed, developed, bought and sold residential and commercial real estate in Central and South Texas. She has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Eanes Talented and Gifted Association and the Eanes Education Foundation. She has co-chaired various fundraisers benefiting non-profits including Pediatric AIDS and Make-A-Wish Foundation as well as local school, church and community events.
Teri is the mother of three, two daughters and a son, an avid water skier and boat enthusiast, and enjoys traveling with her eldest daughter who works around the globe.

Roberta Lang serves as General Counsel and Global Vice President of Legal Affairs for Whole Foods Market, Inc., a fortune 500 company and the world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Ms. Lang is responsible for a broad scope of corporate legal functions for the entire company and its 59,000 plus Team Members. Ms. Lang works closely with the Whole Foods Market Executive and National Leadership Teams, as well as with the Board of Directors. Her team provides a variety of services and counsel ranging from intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, securities, contractual work, risk assessment, human resources, employment and labor, licensing, policy and business advice. She has been recognized five times as a Whole Foods Market “All*Star”, the Company’s highest honor, for her overall outstanding performance as a dedicated, tireless team member who brings incredible intellect, seasoned perspective, understanding and balance to her professional life.
Roberta has been a legal consultant to several international corporations and has chaired both business and tax related bar association committees as well as serving as an arbitration judge and has been dedicated to Conscious Capitalism as an entrepreneur for over 35 years. She sits on the board of the Whole Planet Foundation and was a board member of the former Animal Compassion Foundation. Ms. Lang is a member of the American Bar Association, the Texas General Counsel Forum and the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Nancy Lunney-Wheeler, MA, served for over 30 years as Director of Programs at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where she organized some 15,000 courses taught by over 5000 teachers over the years. She continues to serve Esalen as Senior Advisor to Programs and Communications, working with curriculum planning, teacher and donor cultivation, branding and messaging, and developing partnerships with universities and other educational institutes.
Long a student of Systemic Constellations, she and her husband, Gordon Wheeler, have developed a dynamic synthesis of Gestalt and System Constellations approaches, focusing on attachment, choice, and phenomenology, with an emphasis on service to the client’s emerging new capacities. They currently offer their program worldwide.
With a background in musical theatre in New York and Los Angeles, she coached a number of well-known stage and film personalities, specializing in helping non-singers prepare for singing roles. Out of this work, influenced by many years of Gestalt training, she developed her popular course at Esalen, Singing Gestalt, where she likewise specializes in working with people, musically inclined or not, use song and text as a way to express emotion and explore relationship.
She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California, where she resides in Santa Cruz and in Big Sur.

Elza Maalouf is an innovator who is defining the fractals of the new emergent story unfolding in the Arab and Muslim world. With a specialized focus on the millennial generation and the women’s movement, Elza taps into the Indigenous Intelligences of a community, culture, or region to unearth the deeper underlying socio-political narratives and rhetoric that conflict, contradict, and coalesce with the larger waves. Throughout the Arab world, women and the millennial generation are co-authoring the new story of nation building. This calls for a macro strategy towards a viable long-term restructuring of fundamental political and social processes. As such, her MeshWorks approach to social, economic, and political reform in the Arab World promotes a bottom-up and top-down transformation that informs new patterns in measuring and delivering breakthroughs for a more complex paradigm.
A societal-building specialist, Elza is a key architect behind several initiatives in the Middle East, including the Build Palestine Initiative (Palestine 21st Century), the EU funded Shams project in Syria, as well as a leading innovator of Functional Capitalism in business throughout the region. As a writer and influential speaker, Elza speaks with a rare authority about what it takes to evolve structures of society and how to solve friction and conflict across cultures and borders. Elza advises change agents, Governments, and influential institutions on how to facilitate and apply innovative frameworks for sustainable change.

Elena Panaritis is an institutional economist, property rights expert, and social entrepreneur. In more than a decade as an economist at the World Bank, Ms. Panaritis spearheaded several institutional reforms including property rights reform in Peru that received International Best Practice and Innovation award. Her book Prosperity Unbound: Building Property Markets with Trust (Palgrave Macmillan) recounts her experience and expounds on her methodology- “Reality Check Analysis”, which is considered one of the best practical applications of institutional economics to property rights issues. She is the founder of Panel Group, a triple-bottom-line advisory group that invests in undervalued property and provides counsel to governments and private sector participants on transforming illiquid real estate and related public policy. She now serves as an MP and a Special advisor to the Greek government, where she leads the effort for public sector reform and reduction in informality.[1] She was elected President of COMSUD (the Commission of Parliamentarians of the Mediterranean countries) in late 2009. Ms. Panaritis has taught economic development, housing finance and property markets reform courses at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and the Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is fluent in Spanish, English, French, Italian, and has basic knowledge of German. She blogs at: www.prosperityunbound.com/blog.

Nadine Spencer is Chief Marketing Officer of BrandEQ Group. Formerly she founded and served as CEO, Q Gourmet, Inc. and as Director of the Delicious Food Show, Nadine Spencer has brought together key partners to create a world class culinary and design experience, focused on the best in food, cooking techniques and kitchens. The wide range of experiences that span Nadine Spencer’s career as an accomplished business executive has equipped her with a diverse and unique skill set, enabling her to drive the shows strategic direction and creative elements. As team leader of MMPCI’s newest show, Nadine manages all production aspects, including business plans, special features, PR strategy, media, marketing, communication strategies, sponsorship, exhibit sales and partner relationships.
Acknowledged as the “International Gourmet Food Goddess” by Art Smith, celebrity restaurateur and Oprah Winfrey’s former personal chef, Nadine has followed a unique path to her current success in luxury brand management and gourmet food innovation. Born in Jamaica, she immigrated to Canada as a child, and eventually attended York University, graduating with a BS in political science. After completing her education, Nadine developed her skills as an entrepreneur, managing various companies. In the process, she worked with Canada’s leading specialty food distributor, managing such brands as Fiji Water, Pepsi Co, and Tropicana.
Prior to joining MMPCI, Nadine was CEO of NSCo, a specialty food and product representation company providing brand management, food industry expertise and market strategy to its partners. In her capacity as CEO, Nadine led the company’s vision, strategic direction, and overall management.
Nadine is deeply passionate about community and social issues, particularly concerning women’s empowerment. Her community activities focus specifically in the areas of education, entrepreneurship, advancement and nutrition. She currently serves on the advisory board of Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (AWE), an alliance-based marketing campaign for the global women entrepreneur movement. She is an active member of the Junior League, and serves as Training Director for the Toronto chapter. She is also the Communications Co-Chair for the Jamaica 50th Independence Committee, and has been nominated as President Elect for the Junior League of Toronto, scheduled to serve in 2013. Recognition of her success and dedication to the women’s business movement has resulted in an appointment to speak at the Rotman Commerce conference on Women in Business: Women’s Leadership Symposium 2011.
Widely involved in the food and entertaining industry, Nadine is professionally associated with the National Association of Specialty Food Trade (NASFT), the International Wine and Food Society and Women’s Culinary Network. Her skills and passion are complemented with a penchant for writing, and she has author of #Thirteen: Business, Gourmet Food and a Social Conscience. She also regularly publishes articles on food trends and the “food lifestyle”. Nadine has received several awards in recognition of her achievements, including the Dale Carnegie Highest Achievement Award for Public Speaking and the UN Volunteer Award. In addition, she has positioned products in the White House, and in O, The Oprah Magazine.
Nadine lives in Toronto with her husband of 19 years, her two daughters Jeaneva and Danielle, and her Lhasa Apso, Pepper.

Nilima Bhat is a visionary, author, speaker, facilitator and coach for Conscious Leadership, Diversity & Inclusion and Integral Health. Her new book, Shakti Leadership: Embracing Feminine & Masculine Power, with Raj Sisodia, offers a model for self-mastery and selfless service that can lead to a free and fulfilled world that works for all.

Nilima headed Corporate Communications for an ITC Hotel, Philips, and ESPN STAR Sports before co-founding Roots & Wings, a leadership consultancy in 2004.

An expert in Indian wisdom and wellness traditions, she is a trained dancer, certified Sivananda teacher and practitioner of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.

Her first book is My Cancer Is Me, with her husband Vijay Bhat, outlining their integrative medicine program for healing through cancer.

Nilima has delivered leadership training and facilitation for Microsoft, Whole Foods Market, Etsy, Genpact, Tata, Societe Generale Bank, Vodafone, and YPO, as well as academic institutions and developmental organizations such as Babson College, University of San Diego, and SKS Microfinance. She is an active supporter of Conscious Capitalism and Women’s International Networking (WIN), and has recently joined the board of Peace Through Commerce.

She is currently focused on building a global network of Shakti-based leaders and entrepreneurs who collaborate to create peace, prosperity, and beauty through the exchange of multiple forms of capital.

Karol Boudreaux is Director of Investments at Omidyar Network in Washington, D.C. She is a lawyer whose work focuses on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. Her work focuses on the institutional analysis of property rights, land tenure, and natural resource management and international development. Karol studies contemporary Africa and the ways in which particular institutional arrangements have either helped or hindered human flourishing and economic development on the continent.
Formerly she served as Africa Land Tenure Specialist at USAID and an affiliated senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She served as lead researcher for Enterprise Africa, a research project of the Mercatus Center that reported on enterprise-based solutions to poverty in Africa. She also served as a member of the faculty of the George Mason University School of Law, and served on the Working Group on Property Rights of the U.N.’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Before joining the Mercatus Center she was assistant dean at the George Mason University School of Law.
Karol earned her BA in English literature from Rutgers University (Douglass College) and her JD from the University of Virginia’s School of Law.

Jimmy Carter is an internationally known resource for improving organizational performance.

As a former Principal at A.D. Little/Innovation Associates, he has extensive experience in guiding leaders at all levels to excellence by generating common understanding, collective commitment, and coordinated action on critical business issues.

Carter’s ten year mission is to create 1000 thriving change agents in high care industries.

Effective Leaders International (ELI) uses a time-tested range of operational excellence and organizational development services in the tradition of Six Sigma/Lean and Organizational Learning (MIT – Sloan School).