Keynote Speakers
Adam Kahane
Adam Kahane is a leading designer and facilitator of processes. He teaches business, government, and civil society leaders how to solve their toughest, most complex problems. His work spans more than fifty countries in every part of the world, and includes executives, politicians, generals, guerillas, civil servants, trade unionists, community activists, United Nations officials, clergy and artists.
Adam is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004). Nelson Mandela said: "This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created."
During the early 1990s, Adam was head of Social, Political, Economic and Technological Scenarios for Royal Dutch/Shell in London. Previously he held strategy and research positions with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), the Institute for Energy Economics (Tokyo), and the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia, California, and the Western Cape.
In 1991 and 1992, Adam facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect the transition to democracy. Since then, he led many seminal multi-stakeholder dialogue-and-action processes throughout the world. He was one of the sixteen outstanding individuals featured in Fast Company’s first annual "Who’s Fast" and is a member of the Commission on Globalisation, the Aspen Institute’s Business Leaders’ Dialogue, the Society for Organizational Learning, the Global Leadership Network, and Global Business Network.
Adam has a B.Sc. in Physics (First Class Honors) from McGill University (Montreal), an M.A. in Energy and Resource Economics from the University of California (Berkeley), and an M.A. in Applied Behavioral Science from Bastyr University (Seattle). He studied negotiation at Harvard Law School and cello performance at Institut Marguerite-Bourgeoys.
Originally from Montreal, Adam is a founding partner of Generon Consulting. He lives in Boston and Cape Town with his wife Dorothy and their family.
