Who We Are
Some of us work directly in conflict mediation while some of us try to apply the principles to our daily work. This is a voluntary group of academics, development practitioners , journalists, consultants all of whom deeply believe in the power of Adaptive Leadership as a resource for social change.
About LPGN
The phenomenal development of technology, in particular the internet, now exists to put increasing numbers of people in previously unimaginably close communication with one another, allowing us to cross cultural boundaries as never before and to tap the deep instinct in every human heart to cooperate beyond national or ethnic identities.
However, we have also witnessed that without evolved leadership, the energy released through these movements cannot be harnessed in a purposeful way that leads towards progress on the underlying, systemic challenges needing to be addressed for peace on a global scale.
We are in the process of partnering and co-creating the infrastructure to ‘contain’ the global connectivity and learning (the whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts) and to support the incubation of individual initiatives.
LPGN Founders
Raised in Northern Ireland, Hugh O’Doherty teaches…
Hugh O’Doherty
Raised in Northern Ireland, Hugh O’Doherty teaches leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he also directs the Leadership for 21st Century Africa program in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation in Kenya. At MIT, he provides adaptive leadership education for the Legatum Center’s Foundry Fellowship Program that brings together entrepreneurs in Africa who have demonstrated a commitment to bringing about change and are purposed to building the leadership skills necessary to carry them into the next phase of their entrepreneurial journey. Hugh has taught leadership and conflict resolution at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, the McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland, where he directed the Ireland-US Public Leadership Program for “emerging” leaders from all the political parties in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, he directed the Inter-Group Relations Project, an initiative bringing together political and community leaders in Ireland to establish protocols for political dialogue. Hugh has consulted extensively with a wide variety of clients including the UN Staff College, the Irish Civil Service, the American Leadership Forum, the Episcopalian Clergy Leadership Program, the National Conservation Leadership Institute, the Harvard Humanitarian Leadership Initiative, the Polish Leadership Academy, and the Mohawk Community Leadership Program in Canada. He has also consulted in Bosnia, Croatia, Venezuela, and Cyprus and has addressed the United Nations Global Forum on Re-Inventing Government. He has worked with the government of Nepal on a negotiation and leadership development program, as a third-party member of an Armenian-Turkish Dialogue process, and on a leadership development program with a number of leaders from major political factions in Kashmir and Bahrain. He is a founder member and Director of the Leadership and Peacemaking Global Network. Hugh earned an M.Ed and Ed.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Gene has been working in leading edge…
Gene Martineau
Co-founder of LPGN.
Gene has been working in leading edge technology start-up’s for over 30 years. His last project in “Smart City” solutions involved applications designed using Machine Vision, Machine Learning/AI, Edge computing, IOT, and Block-Chain. He is focused on bringing state-of-the-art technology capabilities through LPGN and its vision for Adaptive Leadership to the domain of international conflict resolution.
Gene’s Purpose Statement:
To Witness and support the recognition and adoption of the Zero-Point education process, as it applies to LPGN and its global mission.
The purpose of my life is to use my creativity…
Tara Acker
KSG Grad 2005
Management Consultant at JCamp180.
Co-founder of LPGN.
The purpose of my life is to use my creativity, authenticity, curiosity, interpersonal and organizational skills to:
- Teach about leadership
- To advocate for the oppressed (women, minorities)
- To use system thinking to make policies or decisions more efficient and effective
- To apply my writing and story telling to create meaning
- To care for living things
Combining legal and advanced public…
Patrick Reilly
LPGN Board Member.
Purpose: To help create paths for local voices.
Combining legal and advanced public administration management skills with political expertise, Patrick assists policy advisers and decision makers to move forward in a productive manner. He has been an elected official in Alaska, a Governor of Alaska appointee to a quasi-judicial appellate board, a council-appointed city clerk, a local governance adviser in the Horn of Africa, an international election monitor and both a private and government attorney. He has worked in Kosovo with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from September 2009 to October 2015, departing as a senior legal officer.
Patrick is a University of Salamanca Global and International Studies Program faculty member who teaches a graduate level negotiations course with the subtitle “Negotiating in the Conflict Zone” and is currently active with international organizations to develop individual and community adaptive leadership skills.
Our LPGN Team
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Daniel Aldaco
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Born and raised in Palestine, Jouzef is an entr…
YOUSEF ALZAEEM
Born and raised in Palestine, Jouzef is an entrepreneur and community advocate in the Gaza Strip. In 2016, he founded Everest Trading Group in Gaza, to manage diverse growing businesses under one investment portfolio. He is a Co- Founder of the YES Initiative for supporting and sustaining peace in the Middle East through education to bring advanced knowledge and know-how techniques into Gaza and to open channels of humanitarian interaction between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Master of Public Administration candidate, Harvard Kennedy School
Statement of Purpose
I have witnessed and experienced the devastating impacts of conflict and wars on human development in all aspects of life. The pain of loss, lack of freedom and safety, and the dilemma of feeling powerless to protect self and family are enough reasons to result in a general case of desperation, which is not only affecting the current suffering generations, but even the next to come. My aim is to help empower our people to change the current reality and recreate hope for a better and safer life for the current and next generations. This can only be achieved by peace in the region. Peace that will help us to open channels of collaboration and fruitful partnerships with the neighboring people who are sharing the same love of the land we both exist on.
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Mercy Atieno
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Tahir is Director of the South Asia…
Tahir Aziz
Tahir is Director of the South Asia Program at Conciliation Resources, a London-based peacebuilding organization that provides practical support to help people affected by violent conflict achieve lasting peace and improve peacebuilding practices worldwide. Tahir supports a range of partner organizations and individuals in the region in their initiatives for conflict transformation and resolution, often drawing upon lessons learned from peace processes in other regions. His work has a particular focus on both sides of the Line of Control, the frontier separating the Indian and Pakistani sides of Kashmir. Before he pursued a master’s in peace studies, Tahir worked for the president of the Pakistani side of Kashmir as Director of the Human Rights Commission. In this role, he participated regularly in United Nations Human Rights Commissions sessions in Geneva. “At that time, the volatility in Kashmir was at its peak,” Tahir said, referring to the violent conflict between India and Pakistan in the early 1990s over the disputed region. “It piqued my interest in human rights and engaging with the international community.” Prior to joining Conciliation Resources, Tahir was also a Research Associate with the South Asia Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, and Senior Associate with International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, Washington D.C.
I aspire to contribute to a burgeoning …
Alina Bitrán
I aspire to contribute to a burgeoning shared language around peace that resonates with, yet transcends, the contours of any specific system of religious, cultural, ethic, political, or normative beliefs. I wish to form and participate in discussions that seek to build this new, untethered, global language that is intuitive, equitable, and accessible, that effectively seeps from the classroom to the field—and importantly, vice versa—and that binds us in a deep and permanent sense of shared humanity.
Short bio:
Alina Bitrán is a Research Coordinator at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) in Mexico City, where she supervises research projects to understand how to develop effective, resilient, and trustworthy police organizations. Previously, as a Senior Analyst at Fundación IDEA / C230 Consultores, she specialized in the design, implementation and evaluation of criminal justice systems and public security and violence prevention strategies at the national and state levels. She was also a Grantee with the Open Society Internship for Human Rights and Governance (OSIRG), where she worked with a local organization in Bogotá, Colombia to support peace building and social justice in relation to the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the revolutionary forces (FARC). Alina holds a Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Public Policy from the University of Chicago.
My family’s experiences of war and death coupled…
Nevena Bosnic
My family’s experiences of war and death coupled with my strong connection and devotion to my roots in the former Yugoslavia have significantly shaped the way in which I think about and engage with the world. Having had the extreme privilege to grow up feeling “safe,” it is my life’s purpose to ensure that others also feel secure – equipped with the knowledge and feeling that they are part of a larger community that hears and cares about them – and that they feel empowered to use their voice to be heard.
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Ali Duvall
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Sakina Haider
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As an economist I’ve been trained to understand …
Smriti Iyer
As an economist I’ve been trained to understand why collective action is difficult to achieve and sustain. In part it is because we’ve all become increasingly individualistic in our pursuits to climb a proverbial ladder which has resulted in a large section of the world being insular to people, practices and also ways of life that are different from theirs. This insularity in turn has led to some of the fragmentation of society, countries and the world. I want to work on facilitating conversations (in whichever form) which allow people to engage with the idea of one community. One that can contain a multitude of languages, cultures, practices; co-exist learn from one another, celebrate our similarities and differences and work towards building a better world together. Smriti has approximately 6 years of experience based in India, United States and Peru. She currently works as a Program Manager at IMAGO Global Grassroots based in Washington DC. She works in the areas of organizational effectiveness and strategy for international development organizations including working with grassroot organizations who want to scale up their work and impact. In the past she has worked on education, skill development, infrastructure, public finance and child protection. Smriti has engaged with diverse work environments and multi-generational teams ranging from research and advocacy to corporate social responsibility. She holds a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Economics from Delhi University and TERI School of Advanced Studies respectively. She also has a Masters in Public Administration and International Development from Harvard University
I am running a 3 day training on Adaptive …
Victoria Jean-Louis
I am running a 3 day training on Adaptive leadership for a network of rural women in the South of Haiti. I am so very excited about this training, but it is also a huge challenge. Many of these women will have had no or very little formal education and while intelligent, resourceful and incredibly knowledgeable I am thinking long and hard these days about my capacity and right methodologies to journey through this reflection and exploration of the AL framework with this group. The very nature of the AL approach in its non-exclusivity and accessibility to all is what makes it so suitable for such a training, but I just need to work on supporting the appropriate container for this process and nurturing our connection though I will naturally be considered as different and as an outsider to some degree… I am so thrilled about working with these women, though it scares me a bit.
Ameya heads the South Asian Leadership Initia…
Ameya Kilara
Ameya heads the South Asian Leadership Initiative, a cutting-edge leadership institute dedicated to building peace in the region. The initiative partners with Inter Mediate and leadership experts at the Harvard Kennedy School. She previously managed the South Asia Programme at Conciliation Resources, facilitating dialogue initiatives across the Line of Control in Kashmir and an India-Pakistan track two process with former military and intelligence chiefs. In 2017, she provided technical support to the UN’s Office of the Special Envoy for Syria in proximity talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups. Ameya is a dual-qualified lawyer (India and the UK) and holds a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Her work has been recognised through multiple awards including the Tamasek Foundation-NUS Leadership Enrichment and Regional Networking Award 2008 and the Gleitsman Leadership Fellowship at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership.
Ashwaq is a longform writer, who most recently was…
Ashwaq Masoodi
Ashwaq is a longform writer, who most recently was a Nieman fellow at the Harvard University. Ashwaq, who belongs to the conflict-ridden region of Kashmir, has been working as a journalist, covering the lives of the minorities in India, for almost a decade. In 2016, she received the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award, the highest award of journalism in India. Prior to this, she received the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her work on gender.
Having grown up in a conflict zone, where access to even basic necessities was a privilege, I have always strived to help in big or small ways to create a just world where children can afford to enjoy the careless joys of childhood, and where youth don’t have to spend every single day in taking desperate actions just to survive. The purpose of my life is to help, through my stories and community building, to seek a life of dignity and peace for as many people around me as I can.
10+ years experience in government, civil society …
Robin Nataf
- 10+ years experience in government, civil society and multilateral
organizations, shaping foreign policy and overseeing crisis response
and governance programmes in the Middle East, Europe and Central
Asia. - Highly skilled communicator with multicultural background, extensive external representation experience and proven ability to brief high-level stakeholders (Ministers, Members of Congress) orally and in writing.
- Policy and analysis skills developed through strategic development, research and policy publications, and contributions to the development of US, UK and French foreign policies.
- Proven management and organizational skills, with experience leading teams of 400+ staff members, overseeing the delivery of programs for up to $16M per annum in highly-complex environments and coaching graduate students in negotiation and leadership.
- Dual French / US nationality.
Víctor holds a Master’s in Public Policy with …
Victor Perez
Víctor holds a Master’s in Public Policy with a concentration on Political and Economic Development from the Harvard Kennedy School. Víctor was part of the 2019 cohort of Topol Fellows on Nonviolent Solutions to Political Conflict at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and he was awarded a Certificate in Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences upon graduating. Beginning in 2018, he co-lead a biweekly dialogue group with the Spanish community at Harvard and MIT to explore approaches to address the political conflict in Catalonia, and to build leadership capacity.
As an adaptive leadership practitioner, Víctor’s work focuses on building leadership capacity in individuals and institutions navigating political conflict environments. Víctor applies the multi-disciplinary background he obtained across Harvard schools on leadership, mediation, adult development, emotional psychology, and mindfulness, to help individuals understanding both personal and systemic elements of conflict and cultivating resilience and greater optionality in their responses.
Over the past 7 years, Víctor has worked in think tanks analyzing international conflict and cooperation dynamics, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, or the NYU Center for the Globalization of Education and Management. He has also participated in civil society campaigns promoting political dialogue in Catalonia, and he was the National Coordinator of the It Gets Better Project in Spain, an international nonprofit aimed at overcoming bullying and discrimination and building resilience for LGBTQ youth.
Víctor received a bachelor’s degree in economics and management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and obtained scholarships to participate in exchange programs at Queen Mary, University of London; the University of Pennsylvania; the London School of Economics Political Science and Peking University. Víctor obtained La Caixa Fellowship for Graduate Studies in North America, which fully funded his studies at HKS, and he is fluent in English, Spanish and Catalan and has studied French, Portuguese and Mandarin.
My purpose is to strive for harmony and …
Preeti Sahai
My purpose is to strive for harmony and inter-connectedness – amongst people from different communities and between humans and the environment. My endeavor is to curate spaces that enable communities facing severe differences to engage with one another. Such dialogue requires deep engagement with the history and narratives of how communities perceive and relate to one another. My experience of about two decades in social development and politics has offered rich insights into how different identity groups relate internally and with others. This experience will help me build dialogue processes in search for new possibilities leading to peace, such as trust, equity, inclusion and resolution of conflicts. A project I am pursuing on interconnectedness of humans and the environment is to develop a food forest as a model for natural farming and living a life in sync with the earth.
