Partners of Grovewell LLC: Professional Biographies

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About GROVEWELL LLC-
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GROVEWELL’s Two Partners

Cornelius N. Grove
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A native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Cornelius Grove grew up and attended high school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, receiving the B.A. and M.A.T. degrees. The Hopkins faculty honored him as "the student who contributed the most to the life of the university."

Cornelius began his professional career as a secondary school history teacher and guidance counselor in White Plains, New York. After three years, he joined Harcourt Brace & World Publishing Company as an editor and writer. Following similar work for a small publishing firm, he became a technical writer, developing computer software engineers' manuals at the IBM Corporation.
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Beginning in 1971, he and his British wife spent two years traveling in Europe and Africa and sojourning in Portugal. Returning to the States, he entered Columbia University and, in 1976, completed a doctorate in intercultural communication. For his dissertation research, he compared the classroom cultures of Portugal and the United States. During 1975-1978, he was an administrator of Columbia University's Institute for Urban and Minority Education and an adjunct assistant professor teaching a course (through 1980) entitled "Cross-Cultural Problems in Classroom Communication." During the 1990s, he taught a similar course and, later, an international human resources course at The New School University.
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In 1978, Cornelius joined AFS Intercultural Programs as director of its research and program development functions, a position he held for 11 years. During this period, his research concentrated on understanding (1) the adjustment process of sojourners and (2) the learning and personal growth of sojourners. ("Sojourners" designates individuals who live in an unfamiliar culture for an extended period of time.) He published many professional articles including, with co-author Prof. Ingemar Torbiörn of the University of Stockholm, "A New Conceptualization of Intercultural Adjustment and the Goals of Training, "International Journal of Intercultural Relations (1985); this won two major awards for excellence and has since been republished several times.
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In 1986, Cornelius was a visiting professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He taught two graduate courses there and, with Prof. Hu Wenzhong, vice chancellor of the university, began co-authoring a book about cultural differences between Chinese and Americans. Published in 1991, Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans quickly became a best-seller for Intercultural Press. The third edition of this book was published in 2010 (info).
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In January 1990, Cornelius established Cornelius Grove & Associates in New York City and began consulting on a full-time basis with respect to cross-cultural business issues. In January 1992, he entered into a business partnership with anthropologist Willa Hallowell. Their firm, now doing business as GROVEWELL LLC, has more than 100 associates and executive coaches based around the world.
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Cornelius is the author or co-author of more than 90 professional articles and books - for his complete personal bibliography, click here - including Randömia Balloon Factory (Intercultural Press, 2001), the unique business simulation (info) co-authored with Willa Hallowell. In 1998, he was named a Charter Fellow of the prestigious International Academy for Intercultural Research (IAIR). In 2001, he was invited to join the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC), the world's premier intercultural institute. At SIIC during July 2005, Cornelius and GROVEWELL senior associate Kathleen Molloy co-instructed "Executive Coaching in Intercultural Perspective." For a testimonial about this course, click here. In mid-2012, Cornelius was invited to contribute to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Intercultural Competence (Sage, 2015).

Cornelius has a career-long interest in worldwide differences in presentation styles as found in classrooms, training rooms, and formal meetings. His research has led to a business-oriented, two-day training event, "Dr. Grove's Toolkit for Effective Presentations to Nationally Mixed Audiences" (info), which has been delivered for global corporations, government agencies, and at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. At a conference in Singapore in October 2005, he presented a major paper, "Understanding the Two Instructional Style Prototypes: Pathways to Success in Internationally Diverse Classrooms" (abstract), published in Singapore in November 2006. For more information on Cornelius's career-long interest and related GROVEWELL's services, visit Grovewell.com/Worldclass.

During 2007, Cornelius's research interest took a different direction. The result is that during June 2013, Rowman & Littlefield will publish The Aptitude Myth: How an Ancient Belief Came to Undermine Children's Learning Today, in which Cornelius reveals from a historical perspective (600 B.C.E. to 1926) why many Americans tend to think about children's learning in a way that highlights their innate, fixed abilities while deëmphasizing effort and perseverance as a path to learning mastery. This book may now be ordered at the Powells, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon websites. For more information, visit TheAptitudeMyth.info.

Cornelius is married to Christine Martin, an Englishwoman who retired during 2009 from editing Arthritis Self-Management. Their children are Matthew, 38, an Executive MBA graduate of Columbia University and a senior managing director at New York Life Insurance Company; Dominic, 35, a research director at Hall & Partners in New York; and Alex, 35, an MBA-MA graduate of Wharton Business School, fluent speaker of Mandarin, and now in Vienna as a vice president at Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft und Österreichische Postsparkasse AG. Cornelius enjoys miles-long daily walks (he and Christine haven't owned a car in 40 years). So far he's the grandfather to three adorable youngsters.

Connect with Cornelius via cornelius@grovewell.com, or via Linked-in ("Cornelius N. Grove").-
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Willa Hallowell
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Willa Zakin Hallowell has dedicated her life to understanding people and societies different from her own. A native of New York City, her fascination began during her many childhood opportunities to sojourn for extended periods in France. She is fluent in French, conversant in Italian, and has studied Portuguese, Spanish, and Persian. Willa believes that flexibility, openness, and the ability to put oneself in the place of others are essential to bridging cultural divides.

Willa attained two degrees in anthropology – a B.A. at Columbia University and an M.A. at the City University of New York – and completed all coursework towards a doctorate. She was an adjunct lecturer in anthropology at Brooklyn College between 1975 and 1978.-
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Having completed two years of courses at the International Center for Photography in 1979, Willa entered a career as a professional photographer, fulfilling assignments in the areas of advertising, fashion, public relations, portraiture, and photojournalism. Much of her work was culture-related, taking her to live among the Cuna Indians of Panama, French peasants, and Louisiana Cajuns, among others. Her clients included well-known corporations (e.g., Dannon Yogurt) and magazines (e.g., Smithsonian and Glamour). She was one of 40 jury-selected photographers who documented a week in the life of Brooklyn, and she taught a popular travel photography workshop at the American Museum of Natural History in which she provided instruction in the context of anthropology and natural science.
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Wishing to return to more active involvement with anthropological concepts, Willa seized an opportunity in 1991 to deliver corporate training programs for expatriate families. Seeking additional ways in which her anthropological training and overseas experience could help corporations in the throes of globalization, Willa joined cross-cultural authority Dr. Cornelius Grove in a business partnership, now known as GROVEWELL LLC. Since 1992, she and Cornelius have completed groundbreaking research on the globalization of diversity (info), and have co-authored more than 30 professional articles as well as Randömia Balloon Factory, the unique business simulation published by Intercultural Press in 2001 (info).
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Willa has repeatedly demonstrated a natural gift for executive coaching, especially of businesspeople crossing cultural boundaries and young "high potential" managers. She is passionate about enabling businesspeople to perceive the subtle but powerful cultural influences that create barriers to successful global deployment of “Made in America” programs such as performance management systems, diversity initiatives, and executive coaching roll-outs. She has presented on these topics at conferences of the Society for International Education, Training, And Research (SIETAR).
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The challenges faced by professional women and the role of women in the global arena have been a special research and coaching interest for Willa. Her presentations on this topic have occurred at conferences of the American Management Association (Chicago 1999), Women on the Move (London 2000), and the Women's International Network (Lausanne 2003). For more information about Willa's specialty, click here.
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The development of Coaching for Global Advantage, GROVEWELL's signature service, has been inspired and led by Willa since the late 1990s. "CGA" is culturally calibrated and driven by the real-time personal and performance needs of the global executive or expatriate rather than by predetermined content. For a full menu of information about CGA, visit Grovewell.com/Coach.

During April 2013, Willa completed the intensely demanding, year-long coaching course offered by New Ventures West; she is now proud to be a "Certified Integral Coach," and to be applying NVW's many worthwhile approaches.
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Willa is married to Christopher Hallowell, a professor of English literature and journalism at Baruch College and the author of several books and many magazine articles. Their children are Maggie, 28, a graduate of Earlman College who is now creating a life for herself; and Matthew, 32, who as a member of the United States Foreign Service is imminently being posted to Bogotá, Colombia, after completing his first assignment in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Willa remains intensely interested in unfamiliar cultures and travels abroad at every opportunity...including recently to India and Japan.

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Testimonial for GROVEWELL's Summer Institute Course

The most experienced course attendee, long an internal coach of executives and senior professionals from Asia and other locations abroad at a major American organization, wrote this about GROVEWELL's SIIC course:

The "Executive Coaching in the Intercultural Perspective" course offered by GROVEWELL LLC was a profound and dynamic demonstration of the intercultural learning process. They have elegantly synthesized a wealth of knowledge and wisdom into pragmatic models and methods and deep personal insights relevant for any professional. An experience greatly enhanced by the generous, delightful trainers, who are truly experts in their fields.
Suzanne L. Balaoing
Kaiser Permanente

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