Born in Germany, Lydia earned a Ph.D. in chemistry during 1993 from Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf.  During her studies she also lived in London and the U.S.  Her desire to add economic knowledge to her scientific background led her to pursue an MBA degree, which she earned in 1998 from Bradford Management Center, U.K.  She became certified as an ISO 9001 auditor by the German Society of Quality, and in the process became an expert in process-oriented quality management.  In addition, she gained certification as a professional coach and in the use of the Hogan Personal Assessment tool.

Lydia started her career in R&D.  She worked for Boehringer Ingelheim and Agfa-Gevaert AG, successfully managing research and product development projects.  After gaining her MBA, she focused on production and technology at Bayer AG, technically and economically assessing innovation projects to prepare for major strategic investment decisions.  She then moved into operational management, becoming Bayer’s first female plant manager.  During 2005 Lydia moved to China, where she was fully responsible for Bayer’s departments of quality control and assurance, and participated in the establishment of a world-class plastics manufacturing plant.  In this capacity, she gained insight into operational processes: HR, HESF, maintenance, and production.  At the end of her assignment in China, she created a customer service center for plastics, working in cooperation with Bayer’s APAC marketing team.

Lydia’s experience in China inspired her to found her own consulting and coaching company.  Her clients are senior and executive managers from large global corporations such as Bayer, General Motors, and AstraZeneca, as well as from subject matter experts who operate at the interface of Chinese and Western cultures.  Following her desire to promote women’s interests, she has developed mentoring program for professional expatriate women.

Lydia is married and the working mother of a young boy, who enhances the joy and balance in her life.  She is devoted to sports, especially running and yoga.  Her hedonistic passions are chocolates and baked goods.  Although employed full-time, Lydia occasionally accepts coaching assignments from GROVEWELL.

A native of France, Sabine has a BA in neuropsychology and an MA in psychopathology from the University of Paris X, and an MA in human and organization development from Fielding University in California.  She also holds an Evidence-Based Coaching diploma from Fielding, where she is completing a doctoral dissertation about female executives on global assignments.  Sabine is accredited at the PCC level by the International Coaching Federation; is certified in the Life Styles Inventory, Emotional Intelligence, and NEO Inventory tools; and has experience applying 360º feedback and the MBTI.  Fluent in English, French, and Spanish, she is conversational in German and is studying Mandarin.

Sabine began her career holding managerial and director-level positions with organizations in France, Germany, the United States, Argentina, and the United Kingdom, including INSEAD and joint programs linking the University of Hong Kong with London Business School on the one hand, and Columbia Business School on the other.  At these schools, her responsibilities gravitated towards providing coaching – usually for MBA and Executive MBA students – and delivering workshops on soft skills.  During her career, Sabine has coached leaders of many Fortune 100 companies, including currently senior leaders of BNP, Novartis, BHP Billiton,  LVMH, Tesco, BCG, and Carrefour.  In this way, she gains insights into the challenges faced by global executives in the consulting, banking, and industrial sectors.

Sabine relocated to China during 2009 in order to coach Executive MBA students participating in the business school programs mentioned above.  She also founded her own consultancy, which works extensively with executives new to assignment in Asia, and with Chinese managers of multinational corporations who are returning to China.  She introduces coaching to local firms in China, and she regularly delivers presentations to expatriates and women’s organisations on soft skills, emotional intelligence, cross-cultural and expatriation issues, and the on-boarding process. 

An expatriate for nearly two decades, Sabine has lived and worked, or at least travelled, on all continents.  She is a spouse, a professional, and the mother of two “third culture kids.”  A practitioner of Vipassana, she remains ever committed to bringing mindfulness to leadership.  However, she is less mindful when it comes to chocolate, especially Neuhaus.

Jeff earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Ohio State University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Cincinnati.  His university years included studies in Europe and Asia.   Jeff also is a graduate of New Ventures West’s professional coaching course.  Jeff is certified to deliver and interpret the MBTI, MPA, Harrison, and Conflict Dynamics assessments, and is a certified trainer of Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking tools.

During more than two decades, Jeff’s experience in the technology and human capital consulting industries has included functional specialization in business development as well as in the assessment, development, and transition of senior leadership talent.  His organizational clients include Fortune 200 and FTSE 100 firms in the technology, consumer goods, construction materials, entertainment, and financial services industries.  Clients have included Juniper Networks, QAD, Tellabs, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Heraeus Holdings, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 

Coachees benefit from Jeff’s ability to help them gain and leverage greater self-awareness, leading to performance improvement for themselves and their direct reports.  They also enjoy his practical and humorous personal style, characterized by one client in the phrase, “he must be the Mr. Rogers of Asia!”  Jeff’s efforts have led to his associated firm’s being nominated on two occasions for a “Best Training Firm in Hong Kong” award – about which Jeff cautions that the nomination was actually about coaching “but they didn’t have a ‘best coaching’ award.”

Jeff is a member of the International Coach Federation, a founding member of what is now called the Hong Kong International Coaching Community, and is the initiator of a local Coaches Learning Group.   He is the author of numerous articles on career transition (“Excellently succinct!” in the view of one reader), including articles written for the China Staff and Career Times magazines. 

Jeff is a former board member of the non-profit Getting Back to Work Foundation.  In his spare time he enjoys practicing taichi, reading, traveling, and simply spending time with his multinational family.

Donny was born in China and received his undergraduate education there.  He came to the U.S. in 1992, where he completed his MBA in international management at the Garvin School of International Management (“Thunderbird”) in Arizona.  He also did graduate work on culture and leadership at East-West Center in Hawaii.  Besides living in the U.S. on several other occasions, he has gained experience relative to other world regions through extensive travel and by studying and working side-by-side with people from many nations.  He is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

Donny started his professional career in 1988 with Standard Chartered Bank in China. In 1995, following his MBA studies, Donny moved on to serve as international operations supervisor and representative for Allied Domecq Retailing International, the parent company of Baskin-Robbins and Dunkin’ Donuts.  In this capacity, he was personally responsible for establishing the first Dunkin’ Donuts store in China.  Later, he served as vice president of Datahouse, a Honolulu-based management and technology consulting company, and still later as managing director of Pilot Marketing Management Consulting Company.  His final corporate responsibility before entering full-time consulting was as vice president of sales and marketing for Oztime, a publicly traded Canadian company specializing in education and technology. 

Donny has taught intercultural communications at the university level and currently holds adjunct posts at the University of International Business and Economics, the RMIT Business School (Australia), and the China branch of Thunderbird’s Executive Education program.  He contributed to Managing Cultural Differences by Robert Moran and has written numerous articles on business topics.

Donny is managing director of one of the first locally based cross-cultural management consulting firms in China, which specializes in management consulting, global leadership training, and executive coaching, all with an emphasis on turning cross-cultural diversity into business advantages.  His executive coach training was with George Renwick at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.  Donny coaching has included managers and senior executives at Motorola, Intel, GlaxoSmithKline, Elsevier, Philips Electronics, Vistoen, ZTE, and Lenovo.

Donny enjoys ping pong, jogging, tiachi, and reading. He and his wife enjoy international travel together.

Edith holds a masters degree in literature from the University of Dijon, where she also studied enology.  At the University of Columbia (Missouri), she received training in broadcast journalism.  She completed her coach training from Coach U, and she is certified to deliver the Cultural Orientations Indicator, the Polaris Global 360, and the REN Coaching Model, which adapts coaching to Chinese values.  She has completed the Global Executive Coaching course at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.

A global nomad by choice, Edith has lived and worked in China, the U.K., the U.S., Israel, France, Russia, and in several nations of Latin America and Africa.  She works professionally in French, Spanish, and English, and she also speaks Russian and some Mandarin.

During Edith’s first career, which lasted 20 years, she was an international journalist and author who acquired an insider’s knowledge of the media.  A correspondent who roamed four continents, Edith observed and explained unfamiliar cultures to North Americans and Europeans.  As editorial manager of a European web site, she managed an international team and adapted content to audiences in six countries. 

Today as a China-based professional, Edith provides not only executive coaching but also global leadership competency development, intercultural awareness training, multicultural teambuilding, globalization consulting, and international mobility services.  Her clients include Alcatel, Procter & Gamble, Schneider Electric, Saint Gobain, PWC, Aventis, Michelin, Accor, Wolseley, Danone, Decathlon, Société Générale, Novozymes, Degussa, Novartis, Areva, Airbus, Spansion, Auchan, Oshkosh, Tyco, and Siemens.

Edith is a member of the International Coach Federation, the Asia Pacific Alliance of Coaches, and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training, And Research.  She infuses all her professional endeavors with a blend of expertise in global business, world cultures, foreign affairs, and geopolitics.  Edith offers to executives her training and experience as a coach, supplemented by her know-how as a global journalist and her passion for enhancing people’s personal and professional effectiveness. 

With her English husband, Edith enjoys singing baroque music in choirs.  They also share with their two teen-age sons a passion for world travelling and scuba diving.

Vivien grew up in Hong Kong, and is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese as well as English.  She completed her bachelors at the University of Hong Kong and an MBA at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  During her career she lived and worked for four years in Chicago and Toronto.  Her early corporate experience was gained at Citibank, British-American Tobacco, Colliers Jardine, and Royal Trust Canada. 

Vivien’s most significant corporate experience was her six years with A.C. Nielsen, the world’s largest market research company, where she served as managing director and business head of Hong Kong and China, then as director of change management for the Asia-Pacific region.  While managing over 250 multinational employees, she helped to build the business at a double-digit rate, improve the efficiency of the operational processes, and boost employee and customer satisfaction.  During her time there, Nielsen underwent acquisition, reorganization, and culture change.  Vivien spent much time coaching executives to improve their effectiveness within these shifting conditions. 

Early in 2012, Vivien received formal certification by the International Coaching Federation as a Professional Certified Coach.  She already was a Certified Facilitator and Certified Action Learning Coach.  She has coached and facilitated workshops for executives at AkzoNobel, Bayer, Cathay Pacific, Coca-Cola, Emerson, HP, GE, Intercontinental, Li & Fung, Merck, Motorola, NICE Systems, Parker Hannifin, Philips, Standard Bank, and Unilever.  Her executive coaching clients have included senior leaders – Chinese, Indian, New Zealander, Australian, Italian, German, Norwegian, English, and American – at Cathay Pacific, ExxonMobil, GSK, HAVI Logistics, Intercontinental, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Novartis, Orbotech, Royal Bank of Scotland, SGS, Standard Bank, Swire Beverages, and Thomson Reuters. 

Vivien is a founding vice president of the HK International Coaching Community, and a member of the International Association of Certified Coaches and the International Association of Facilitators.  Since 2007, she has written for a Hong Kong newspaper a column featuring case studies of her work as an executive coach and facilitator.  In May 2009, Vivien’s columns were published in a book, A Positive Look at My Strengths: Inspiration of Positive Thinking from an Executive Coach. 

Vivien loves reading, travelling, movies, learning, practicing meditation and qi gong, and doing voluntary work for the Children Cancer Foundation and Hong Kong University Graduates Association Education Foundation.

Maura has an M.A. in intercultural relations from Antioch University in addition to a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College; she also studied Mandarin in Taiwan.  She has been a faculty member at both the Singapore Institute of Management and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. 

Maura’s corporate career includes service as director of learning and development in Asia for AlliedSignal and, later, Honeywell.  In this capacity, Maura led teams that designed and implemented a regional learning infrastructure; led change-management initiatives in the mergers of AlliedSignal and Honeywell International, then Honeywell International and G.E.; consulted to and coached Western and Asian senior executives throughout Asia Pacific; and, in relation to a potential joint venture, led a strategic review process that resulted in a decision to stop action, thereby initially saving $20 million.

Maura began consultancy work in 1993, helping Hong Kong-based companies move their operations to China.  She specializes in managing change and transitions in multicultural situations in which an understanding of cultural values is crucial to building relationships and teamwork.  She offers insights into Asian and Western behaviors as well as intra-Asian differences, thereby enabling clients throughout the region to enhance staff performance.  Maura also has experience helping clients to localize operations, build multicultural teams, translate new visions into plans of action, close the skills gap, raise staff morale, design learning programs, and smooth leadership succession. Client firms have included ARCO, Nokia, AlliedSignal, Honeywell, Citibank, Sun Life Financial, J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered Bank, FedEx, Golin/Harris, Luen Thai, Watson Wyatt, Manulife, Coca Cola, Dana, Marriott, 3 Com, Philips, and the United States Consulate in Hong Kong.

One of Maura’s specialties is developing the leadership potential of both Asian and Western executives.  For example, for Nokia at a time when it was expanding from Hong Kong into mainland China, she coached Chinese, British, American, and Finnish executives and their teams to work together effectively within their intensely multicultural environment. 

Maura is married to Mark Gau, a native of Taiwan and now an executive of a global corporation.  Early in their marriage, she had the experience of living in Taipei with Mark’s extended family of 20 people spanning four generations.  Maura enjoys travel, international cuisine, collecting textiles and carpets, and hiking the Grand Canyon.

A native of New Zealand, Anna completed a bachelors in fine arts at the University of Canterbury, followed by post-graduate studies at other universities in both design management and communication management.  In 2003, she received an M.A. in organizational development at the University of Western Sydney.  She also has studied extensively at the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication (Oregon), learning to incorporate intercultural concepts and techniques in her leadership coaching and cultural change work.

After receiving her bachelors degree, Anna joined the international division of Elizabeth Arden, for which she worked for 12 years in expatriate positions across Europe and Asia-Pacific; eventually she attained the position of marketing manager for Asia.  In the course of her corporate and subsequent career, Anna lived and worked in Japan (where she devoted three years to establishing a joint venture), Hong Kong (where she managed a cultural-change project), and Singapore; these first-hand experiences enabled her to grasp the complexities of identifying and navigating different needs and perspectives. 

Founding her own consultancy in 1991, Anna has coached executives at the C-level and below for companies in China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States.  Clients have included Ford Motors, Caterpillar, Barclays Global, Cisco, E&J Gallo, Raytheon, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Scherring, Kelloggs, Deutsche Bank, Frucor, Thompson-Reuters, Cathay Pacific, and Optus Communications.  She also facilitates leadership programs for Thompson-Reuters and the U.N. 

Anna’s self-development as a coach is grounded in her NLP training in systemic thinking and advanced behavioral modeling.  In addition, Anna is a certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral, MBTI-EIR, BarOn-EQi, FIRO-B, SIE (Survey of Influence Effectiveness), MOT (Managing Organizational Transition), and Situational Leadership.  Anna’s integral approach to executive coaching encompasses psychology, intercultural insights, leadership training, and systemic thinking.

Anna is the treasurer for Lotus Outreach Australia, an independent, secular, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the living conditions of vulnerable children and their communities through education and healthcare.  Otherwise, she enjoys teaching and practicing yoga, reading, traveling, music, art, walking, dancing, and being with her family in New Zealand whenever possible.

Karen holds an M.A. in philosophy and has completed graduate work in organizational behavior.  She regularly attends the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (held annually in Oregon), where she has completed nearly 400 hours in professional development programs.

Karen has been involved since the early 1970s in the field of intercultural communication.  To date, she has prepared thousands of people for worklife or lifestyle transitions, ranging from high school and college students participating in international educational exchange programs to corporate executives and their families on long- and short-term assignments abroad.  She also has been commissioned to design and deliver expatriate orientation programs for clients such as Met Life and Affiliated Companies of New York City and Optus Communications of Sydney, Australia's second largest telecommunications firm.

Born in the United States and a migrant to Australia in 1988, Karen became aware of a lack of services to support incoming corporate personnel in the cultural transition to life in Australia.  With the assistance of over 200 country/cultural specialists, she has been involved in the delivery of post-arrival coaching programs for people from Chile, China, India, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S.  Pre-departure coaching has occurred for business people on their way to 40 destination countries.
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Karen recently delivered a cross-cultural management program in Seoul for a French-Korean joint venture,  and multicultural team-building programs in Shanghai and Bangkok for a U.K.-based client firm.  Executive coaching assignments have included business leaders based in Australia, Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Karen lives with her husband, an Australian with Belgian and Australian parents, plus two Birman cats.  She enjoys yoga, swimming, and international folk-dancing.

See Luan holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Malaya and a diploma from the Communications, Advertising, and Marketing Foundation in the U.K.  He was trained as an executive coach at Coach U, Corporate Coach U, and the Advantara Global Executive Coach Institute.  The International Coach Federation recognizes him as a professional certified coach.  His global career has enabled him to speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Malay, and English.

See Luan has held a variety of roles with major corporations in Asia, Europe, and the United States.  For Nestle, he served as head of market research.  For Esso, he was a public affairs manager.  For Esso/Exxon, he was both a marketing manager and (in Houston, Texas) a human resources manager.  And for BOC Gases, he served as human resources director for the North Pacific region with responsibility for some 7,000 employees in ten nations.

As an executive coach, See Luan’s focus is on leadership development, management of change, performance and personal effectiveness enhancement, career and life/financial planning skills, cross-cultural communications, all leavened with work-life balance.  See Luan credits his ability to successfully coach a wide variety of executives to his ability to customize, his cross-cultural experience, his use of Socratic questioning and empathic listening, his high familiarity with Asia-based joint-ventures, and finally his yin-yang blend of seriousness and light-heartedness.  He is certified to use several assessment instruments including Hay McBer Competency Applications.

See Luan's clients include ExxonMobil, Saloman Smith & Barney, American Eagle Tankers, KE Swan, F&N, American Express, Borland, NTUC Income, Sino-Land, Sino Hotels, Fullerton Hotel, Equatorial Hill Resort, Givaudan, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Lufthansa Cargo, Microsoft, Munich Re, Ogilvy & Mather, Petronas, Pioneer Investments, Puratos, Tetra-Pak, S.W.I.F.T., Star TV, and Tenaga National.  He is a fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management, president of the Asia-Pacific Alliance of Coaches, and immediate past president of the Singapore Chapter of the International Coach Federation.  The International Journal of Coaching in Organizations has published his articles.

See Luan's interests are reading, music, table-tennis, numismatics, and traveling (especially in China, where he collects Chinese snuff bottles).  See Luan and his wife, a retired manager in the retail business, love to spend time with their grown son in Sydney.

BH was born and raised in Singapore; as a result, he speaks English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.  His B.E. degree is from the National University of Singapore.  He also holds a master of philosophy from the Thierry Graduate School of Leadership (Brussels), where he was awarded a scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in leadership development -- which he recently completed!  In recognition of his accomplishments in his specialty area, executive coaching in leadership development, Thierry has appointed him as a faculty member.

BH has 26 years of experience as a manager and executive, serving in China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Japan as well as in Western Europe and the United States.  He held posts such as vice president, managing director, and director for well-known MNCs including AT&T Consumer Products, SyQuest Technologies, and ICI Acrylics.  His experience comprises not only general management with P&L responsibility (revenues over US$150 million) but also strategic planning, manufacturing, quality systems, and sales & marketing.

As an executive coach, BH specializes in leadership development in a culturally-diverse environment.  He works with CEOs, GMs, and VPs and their teams to enhance their effectiveness and bring greater value to their organizations.  BH also has consulted with executive teams who are facing the challenges of large-scale cultural transformation.  His clients have included AMD, Pfizer, Asia Pacific Breweries, Shell, National Starch and Chemical,  Equant,  Baxter, L’Oreal,  TNT, SMRT, SITA, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, STATS ChipPac, British Oxygen, and Dell.  To date BH has delivered nearly 1,000 hours of  professional coaching for these and other clients.  He is accredited by the International Coach Federation and is a graduate of Corporate Coach University.  

BH writes about global leadership from an Asian perspective.  At Grovewell.com/pub-2-global.html are two 2012 articles that appeared in The Business Times of Singapore, and information about his 2010 book, The First Time Manager in Asia.

BH lives with his family in Singapore.  He and his wife love traveling and often visit the United States and Europe as well as other countries in Asia.  Their older daughter works in Chicago while the younger one is completing undergraduate studies in Singapore.  BH reads widely and loves the out-of-doors.

Sharon holds a B.A. in business administration from the University of South Australia.  She is certified as a coach by Corporate Coach University; has additional qualifications in DISC and Emergenetics; and is qualified to deliver several of the Ken Blanchard organization’s standard offerings.  Sharon coaches and trains equally well in English and Mandarin; she’s also capable of communicating when necessary in Cantonese, Hokkien, and Teochew.

Sharon’s professional career began in Singapore with Polysar Asia-Pacific, where she was an assistant to the technical director.  She then went to Nokia, where she held positions of increasing responsibility between 1993 and 1999.  In one role, she was responsible not only for managing the company’s annual 360° appraisal exercises for executives and promising managers, but also for integrating Nokia’s global performance management system throughout Asia-Pacific.  Sharon’s final role with Nokia was as an in-house competency development consultant; she oversaw the company’s training and development initiative in management & leadership, and worked with senior managers to identify and develop high potential managers.

Sharon relocated to China in 2000 and became an independent consultant.  Her work has included executive coaching, coach training for managers, and the facilitation of leadership and team programs.  Her clients have included Akzo Nobel, Accenture, Agfa Graphics, Bayer Materials Science, Bearing Point China, Bosch Rexroth China, Boston Scientific, Coca Cola, Corning China, Covidien Healthcare, DHL China, Dow Corning, Newell Rubbermaid, Royal Sun Alliance Insurance, Sara Lee, Guoman Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Swissotel Shanghai, Nokia, Tyco Electronics, and Stryker in both China and Taiwan.

Sharon says that her corporate and consulting experience enables her to relate well to the challenges faced by executives and their organizations.  Now living again in her native Singapore, she is eager to work with anyone who intends to strive for personal and professional alignment and balance in life.

Sharon is married and has two teenaged children.  Besides her close-knit family, she maintains friendships in many countries around the globe.  Her personal mission “to make a difference that counts” had led Sharon to participate in charity sponsorships and fundraising in support of special medical needs (especially kidney failure) and children’s education.

Michael holds a bachelors degree in commerce and a post-graduate diploma in banking from the University of Puna as well as a masters degree in commerce from Shivaji University.  He attended the human process laboratories offered by the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Sciences, and he has qualified as a cross-cultural trainer with General Motors Relocation Services.

Michael’s early corporate career was in advertising, where he held creative and client-service responsibilities.  During that time he also served as a visiting faculty member at business schools such as Symbiosis Institute of Business Management.

During his long, independent career, Michael has facilitated, trained, and consulted extensively in the area of cross-cultural effectiveness and collaboration, and cross-cultural team-building.  These activities, for numerous client companies, have been conducted both as stand-alone interventions of one and two days, and as modules within managerial and leadership development programs.  His work with cross-border teams, delivered in the U.S., U.K., and The Netherlands, has been for Essel Propack and Suzlon.  Including Michael’s many other types of deliveries, he has trained nearly 50,000 managers and executives for DSP Merrill Lynch, Vodafone, Cadbury India, Algorithmics Toronto, Morgan Stanley India, Chase Manhattan Bank, Lucent Technologies, Amtrex Hitachi, Cummins India, and Godrej & Boyce.

During his parallel career as an executive coach, Michael has contributed to the leadership development of CEOs, vice presidents, and middle managers at Johnson Controls, Pharma Link, Eurostar Diamonds/Dimexon Diamonds, Hindustan Times-Fever 104, Dawney Day, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson, and Whirlpool India.  Michael's work as a coach addresses leadership effectiveness, cross-cultural and interpersonal communication, diversity challenges, and people management.

In the course of his training and coaching, Michael travels not only throughout India but also to North America, Europe, Israel, and Southeast Asia.  He is a member of the panel of trainers for the U.K. firm Frost & Sullivan, and he is a training partner with the Tata Management Training Centre.

Michael’s wife, Lorraine, is trained in industrial psychology and counseling; she collaborates with him whenever there’s a need for specialized behavioral inputs.  Michael enjoys listening to Western classical music and taking long drives in the country.  For him, combining both of these pleasures is the ultimate relaxation.

Pradeep is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology and a post-graduate in personnel management & industrial relations of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.  He’s an alumnus of Kellogg School of Management’s executive development program.  He’s been trained at the International Coach Academy and, from the International Coach Federation, he recently received his Associate Certified Coach credentials. 

Pradeep’s 26-year corporate career began in 1981 with Tata Consultancy Services, where he coordinated the allocation of manpower to TCS’s projects worldwide.  He then devoted 19 years to Citigroup, beginning as head of HR for Citicorp Overseas Software, where he supported senior management in setting up a company that became recognized during the mid-1990s as a premium software organization.  His subsequent work with Citicorp included leading Citibank’s HR function in the U.A.E. & the Gulf, where he was based in Dubai; working at Citicorp’s headquarters in New York on a group that was responsible for identification and development of global leadership talent; and heading the corporation’s entire HR function throughout South Asia in his final assignment.  All told, Pradeep’s corporate career comprised creating high performing work teams, founding HR functions, developing visions, conducting assessments, developing leadership talent, reëngineering HR processes, and managing interventions that enhanced the organization’s effectiveness. 

Pradeep began his independent career in 2007.  His most significant consulting projects have been these:  For Mumbai International Airports, he helped to define its mission, vision, and values; select senior managers; and set the human resources functional roadmap.  For PN Writer, he assisted in defining roles for family members and professional managers, and developed performance parameters for senior management.  As an executive coach, Pradeep has worked with CEOs and other senior executives at Johnson & Johnson, RBS, DSP Merrill Lynch, ENAM, i-flex, and Reliance Mutual Fund.  He is regularly invited to the Indian School of Business as an executive coach for their leadership program.  During 2006, he chaired the Conference Board’s Human Resources Council in India.

Pradeep resides in Mumbai with his wife, a homemaker, and two daughters who are currently studying.

A native of France, Jean-François graduated as an engineer from Ecole Centrale Paris, then pursued executive education at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in North Carolina.  He is accredited as a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation, and has been trained in NLP, “clean language,” Extended DISC, and other executive coaching techniques.  He is fluent in English and French, and has some understanding of Thai, German, and Spanish.

Jean-François’s 15-year corporate career was with Lafarge, the “world leader in building materials” and a member of the Fortune 500.  Ten of those years found him in Asia, holding senior management positions with P&L responsibilities.  In his final corporate role, Jean-François was responsible for the worldwide strategy of a two-billion-euro division.  In this role, he informally coached business unit managers in 32 countries, usually about their business development efforts, and conducted missions in 40 countries. 

As a global executive coach, Jean-François is working across a variety of organizations and industries.  He has enabled more than 300 C-level executives and other senior leaders to adjust to different cultures, fine-tune their strategic planning, and develop their leadership and communication skills.  He also is passionate about cross-cultural leadership consulting and training.  His frequent cross-cultural workshops have been attended by more than 600 executives to date and his public-speaking engagements have attracted over 3,000 attendees.  His regular clients are found in Europe, Asia, North America, The Middle-East, and Australia, and include Unilever, Philips, L’Oréal, Mazda, Michelin, Barclays, S.C. Johnson, Hermes, Carrefour, Akzo Nobel, BNP Paribas, ING, Essilor, SAP, Amadeus, Akzo Nobel, KFC, Pizza Hut, Tesco, Air France-KLM, Bosch, Hanes, Carrefour, Deloitte, and HSBC.

Jean-François is an active participant in the Asian community of executive coaches.  He trains and supervises coaches.  He devotes more than 80 hours each year to his own professional development, and his own coaching is supervised.  He is a co-author of Coaching in Asia (Candid Creation Publishing, 2011), and is at work co-authoring a second book on executive coaching in Thailand.

A resident of Thailand, Jean-François pursues pastimes such as sailing, skiing, playing music, reading, cinema, and travelling (so far to over 75 countries).

A native of Austria, Astrid holds a Ph.D. degree in international business from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.  For her dissertation, she conducted a study of British-German differences in cross-cultural training.  Since then, as a university lecturer in the area of intercultural management and organizational behavior, she has taught at business schools in Australia, China, The Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, France, Portugal, Korea, and Thailand.  Besides her native language, German, Astrid is fluent in English, French, and Spanish, and is currently dedicating herself to improving her spoken and written Thai.

While still at Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Astrid was deputy director of international relations, in which role she coordinated and organized projects in China, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, the U.K., and others.  In 2005, she was invited to become associate dean of business at Asian University, in Thailand, where she relaunched the MBA program and introduced a successful summer program for international business students called “Asian Experience.”  Currently, at Mahidol University in Thailand, Astrid is the manager of international relations at the College of Management, where she’s in charge of executive “Asian Management” programs for international managers.

As an independent consultant, Astrid conducts executive training and coaching in the areas of international relocation, cross-cultural teams, international negotiations, and similar topics for companies around the world.  Her client list includes Benda-Lutz International, Plansee Metall GmbH Austria, Hutchison Austria, General Electric Hungary, Solectron Romania, Opel Thailand, GKN Thailand, GlaxoSmithKline Thailand, General Motors Thailand, Merck Thailand, Danone Thailand, Chevron Thailand, Johnson & Johnson, and Bayer Vietnam.

Astrid’s research interests include intercultural management and intercultural training as well as cultural influences on instructional styles; she has been published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence & Management and several others in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.  Her current research is comparing management in Thailand and Germany.  Currently a co-editor of the book series Management Across Borders from IKO Verlag in Frankfurt, Astrid is co-founder and vice-president of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training And Research in Austria.

In her spare time, Astrid enjoys travelling and exploring new countries.  Her trips have recently taken her to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Uganda. She engages in biking, diving, skiing and – in the South American Andes and the Asian Himalayas – mountain climbing.

Alex holds bachelors and masters degrees in English literature from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and an MBA in international management from Thunderbird School of Global Management.  She is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in human and organizational development at Fielding Graduate University.  Alex is accredited as a coach by the International Coaching Federation, and is certified in the MBTI, DISC, and the Intercultural Readiness Check.  She is fluent in Korean and English, and is comfortable in Japanese.

Alex was employed for five years for Poongjin Interior Design, a leading firm catering to multinational companies in Seoul.  She began there as a senior project manager in the international department, with responsibility for eight managers and 48 staffers.  She then became Poongjin’s marketing director, with responsibility for projects on behalf of IBM Korea, Motorola Korea, Standard & Poors, Louis Vuitton, and other major organizations.

Since becoming an independent consultant in 2004, Alex has enabled her corporate coachees and clients to achieve high performance and personal development in the face of intercultural challenges.  Her services have included leadership facilitation, with her mission being to encourage coachees to lead themselves before leading others.  Among her clients have been Samsung Global Strategy Group, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Hyundai-Kia Motors, SK Telecom, Amore Pacific, POSCO, Cigna Korea, New York Life Insurance Korea, DuPont, SPX Filtran, Ingersoll Rand, Prudential Investments, and Google. 

One of Alex’s coachees, an advisor to an international investment firm, recommended her services as providing “an especially high value to international executives as they address the complex communication and leadership issues of managing on foreign soil.”

Alex is the lead author of Cultural Detective: East Asia, a web-based intercultural training tool that defines the similarities and differences of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures.  Her guest speaking appearances include the 2008 LG Electronics Global HR Forum and the 2006 Swiss Re Reinsurance Asia HR Conference.

Alex enjoys good food, good company, and good talk.  She also loves classical music and any kind of dance.

Chris received his undergraduate degree in intercultural communications and Russian language & literature from the University of Minnesota; he holds a Japan-focused MBA from the University of Hawaii.  He will soon gain a post-graduate degree in evidence-based coaching from Fielding Graduate University, and will receive PCC certification from the International Coach Federation.  Chris also is trained in FIRO-B, MBTI Step II, CPI 260, DISC II, and several 360° instruments.

Before becoming a full-time coach, Chris served in senior leadership positions at Unisys Japan, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fusion Systems Japan, and Green Foods Co. Ltd.  Since devoting his career to coaching, his client firms have been AIG, China Construction Bank, Credit-Suisse, Ford-Visteon, Goldman Sachs, Hartford Life Insurance, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, ING, Microsoft, Midas Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemicals, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Prudential, Rambus Japan, Royal Canin Japon, Sakata Seeds, SAP Japan, Symantec, Syngenta, Toyota, UCB Japan, and Nihon Unisys.  Chris’s coachees have included executives of Japanese, American, French, German, Belgian, Chinese, British, Canadian, Australian, and Indian nationalities.

One of Chris’s recent coachees, a Japanese executive of an international firm, wrote that he and Chris “…were very focused on an ultimate objective of mine, which is to make business further grow.  By way of active listening and powerful questioning, Chris put me in a situation where I think, think, think, and think.  He also provided a coaching session to my management team.  I expanded my scope of abilities beyond my original expectation.”

Chris serves as chair of the Human Resource Management Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and as vice chair on the board of directors of the Tokyo English Life Line.  He currently is an adjunct professor at Temple University Japan, and is leader of the International Coach Federation’s Coaching in Asia Special Interest Group. 

Chris and his wife, Kyoko, have been married since the mid-1990s.  Chris reports that they have established a successful intercultural marriage “through arguing and pleading, loving and finding common ground.”  They have two lovely pre-teen daughters, Kay and Emma, who are talented ballet dancers as well as Hannah Montana fanatics.

Born in Tokyo, Sonoko spent a year in France while completing her first degree at Tokyo University for Foreign Studies.  After working for Seiko Time Company and being involved in a major French-Swiss-Japanese-U.S. joint venture, she attended Stanford University and received a masters degree in intercultural communication.  Since then, Sonoko has devoted herself to the cross-cultural field.  At Japan Women's University she developed and taught courses on intercultural communication, simultaneously serving as a trainer, coach, and consultant for Japanese and foreign businesses.  In 1990, Sonoko followed her expatriate husband to New York and began working on a Ph.D. in intercultural education at New York University.

In 1988, Japan UNESCO and a major Japanese newspaper gave Sonoko an award to encourage her contributions to international knowledge.  She thereupon became a prolific writer.  Her books include Theories on International Human Relationships, declared the most recommendable book of 1989 by the Japan Library Association; Intercultural Communication for Japanese (1990); Culture Shock — Foreigners' Experiences in Japan (1990); and An Invitation to Intercultural Communication (1998).

Sonoko's husband is an executive of a joint venture created by U.S. and Japanese investment banks.  Their two children began their schooling in New York City.  When the family returned to Japan, both children...and their parents...found the readjustment challenging; as a result, Sonoko deeply understands children's as well as adult's relocation and readaptation issues. 

In her leisure time, Sonoko enjoys playing tennis with her husband and doing Teaquon-do with her students.

A native of Java, Irid is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Indonesia.  Years ago, as the young wife of a graduate student at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Irid experienced a challenging adjustment to the United States; this experience began her life-long interest in intercultural adaptation.  She later returned to that same university and completed an MA in American Studies in 1982 and, more recently, a Ph.D. in intercultural studies.

During the 1980s, Irid worked for American Field Service (AFS), the student exchange organization, as National Director for Indonesia.  She also served during those years as the orientation coordinator in Indonesia for the Canadian International Development Agency.  She gained considerable experience in the recruitment and selection of Indonesian students for international scholarship programs, and she became involved in orienting the selected students for their experiences abroad.  She also has worked with foreign students coming into Indonesia.

Irid is founder and president of her own intercultural management consulting and training company.  She and her staff train professionals from all over the world who are relocating to Indonesia.  Over the past decades, she has worked with the representatives of governments, international non-profit organizations, and global corporations in Africa, Asia-Pacific, North America, and Western Europe.  Irid regularly provides intercultural training about Indonesia for the CEOs, managers, and staff members of gas and oil companies including Total, BP, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil, CNOOC, Petro-China, and Maxus.

Irid currently serves as director of the Indonesian International Education Foundation (IIEF); president of the International Council of Islamic Women Scholars; president of the Indonesia chapter of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training, And Research; and lecturer on intercultural relations in the graduate school of the University of Indonesia.  In her IIEF role, she oversees multiple projects on behalf of the East-West Center, the Ford Foundation, the GE Foundation, Goldman Sachs, and many others.

She and Asmir, her husband, have three grown children and will soon welcome their sixth grandchild.  She is on the advisory board of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Indonesia, and on the governing board of the Jakarta International School.

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