Conflict, Power & Persuasion

Federico Varese is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College. His work focuses on organised crime as a system of governance, examining how criminal groups emerge, expand, and adapt across different societies. He has written extensively on the Russian mafia, Italian mafia groups, Somali piracy, the migration and evolution of mafia organi...

Sue Williams is one of the world’s most experienced hostage negotiators. A former senior detective at Scotland Yard, she led both the Kidnap and Hostage Crisis Negotiation Units and played a central role in the UK’s national crisis response to overseas abductions -regularly advising Prime Ministers and senior ministers during high-stakes incidents. Over her career, she has helped resolve hundreds...

Ken Cloke is a globally recognized mediator, dialogue facilitator, and conflict resolution systems designer with over 40 years of experience. As Director of the Center for Dispute Resolution, he specializes in resolving complex disputes across sectors, including workplace, public policy, and cross-cultural dialogues. A co-founder of Mediators Beyond Borders, Ken has worked in over 25 countries and...

Katrina Abatis is a Senior Program Officer in the Mediation Support Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS), a think tank at ETH Zürich. She is the author of the paper featured in this episode, "Inviting the Elephant into the Room: Culturally Oriented Mediation and Peace Practice," written as part of the Culture and Religion in Mediation (CARIM) program, a joint project between the...

With seven award-nominated albums to his name, Emmanuel has collaborated and performed alongside musical legends like Lauryn Hill, Peter Gabriel, Ed Sheeran, Joss Stone, and Alicia Keys, marking his presence at global events including Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday Concert, Live 8, and the One Concert for the Dalai Lama. His journey from child soldier to the world stage is captured in his autobiog...

Aqeela Sherrills is a seasoned activist with over three decades of dedication to community safety and healing from violence in underserved areas. In 1992, he notably brokered a historic peace agreement between the rival gangs, the Bloods and the Crips. He's a nationally acknowledged expert in victim services and community-driven public safety. Aqeela co-founded the Community-Based Public Safet...

Dag Nylander is a Norwegian diplomat, and is currently the director the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF). Prior to joining NOREF, he was director and head of the Section for Peace and Reconciliation in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Throughout his career, he has held several diplomatic positions, most notably as a mediator and Norwegian special envoy to Colombia. From 2...

Alexandra Zimmerman founded and chairs the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force. She's also a member of several IUCN groups, including the Asian Elephant Specialist Group, the Cat Specialist Group, SOS Technical Advisory Board, and the Conservation Advisory Board of Elephant Family. In addition, Alexandra serves as a Senior Advisor on Human-...

Jeanne Brett is a highly distinguished and accomplished scholar in the field of dispute resolution. She is the DeWitt W. Buchanan, Jr. Distinguished Professor Emerita of Dispute Resolution and Organizations and the former director of the Kellogg School’s Dispute Resolution Research Center.  Jean’s research has focused on cross-cultural negotiations, the resolution of disputes, and the performance...

Gilead Sher is an Israeli attorney who specializes in international negotiations, both business and political. He served as Chief of Staff and Policy Coordinator to Israel's former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak. In that capacity, he acted as one of Israel's senior peace negotiators at the Camp David summit in 2000 and the Taba talks in 2001, as well as in extensive rounds of c...

Miriam Coronel-Ferrer is a professor of political science at the University of Philippines Diliman and headed the Government of Philippines panel in peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with culminated in the signing of a peace accord in 2014. Miriam is the first female chief negotiator in the world to sign a final peace accord with a rebel group. She was a member of the United Natio...

Abid Shamdeen was born and raised in Sinjar, Iraq. For the past six years, he has advocated for victims of the Yazidi genocide and has managed projects that have brought aid and assistance to internally displaced Yazidis in Iraq. During the United States-led invasion of Iraq, he worked for the US Army as a cultural advisor and translator. Abid holds a master’s degree in Political Science from the...

Charles Davidson directs the Political Leadership Academy and is research faculty at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.  He is also a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution focusing on civil war, insurgency, and vulnerable populations with over a decade of experience in economic peacebuilding in war-torn countries working most re...

Simon J. A. Mason is a senior researcher and head of the Mediation Support Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich . He has been involved as a facilitator in workshops on conflict analysis, dialogue, negotiation, and mediation with actors from conflict contexts around the world. Together with Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, he recently co-authored the book: Mediation and Governance in Fragil...

Victoria Pynchon is an author, keynote speaker, and was a consultant and trainer at She Negotiates, which she co-founded in 2010. She wrote a thrice-weekly negotiation blog at ForbesWoman for more than two years and has written lengthier pieces for CNN International, the American Bar Association Journal and other niche practice magazines. As a speaker, writer and consultant in the women’s negotiat...

Alanis Obomsawin was born in 1932 and is a member of the Abenaki Nation. She spent her early years on the Odanak reserve, then at the age of six relocated to Trois Rivieres, Quebec, where her family was the only Indigenous peoples in the community. Driven by the need for truthful and respectful education about Indigenous peoples, while in her early 20s, Alanis began performing as a singer and stor...

Jim Tamm is a former judge and an expert in building collaborative workplace environments, with 40 years of experience in the field of alliance building and conflict resolution. As a Senior Administrative Law Judge for the State of California for 25 years, Jim mediated more than 1,000 employment disputes. His legal decisions have impacted national labor policy in the US, and he has authored traini...

Julia Minson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is a social psychologist with research interests in conflict, negotiations and judgment, and decision making. Her primary line of research addresses the “psychology of disagreement” – how do people engage with opinions, judgments, and decisions that are different from their own? She explores th...

Jamie Arbuckle served for 36 years in the Canadian Army. As a peacekeeper, he has served three tours with the United Nations Forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP), and with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. He also served four tours with Canada’s NATO forces in Germany. Jamie was a faculty member of the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training...

On Amir received his Ph. D in management science and marketing from MIT’s Sloan School of management and is a professor of marketing at UC San Diego. On’s research focuses on using psychological and economic principles to identify successful strategies in different market settings. He investigates different customer decision-making mechanisms and their influences on pricing and promotion strategie...

Mickey Bergman has spent over 15 years in various aspects of strategic diplomacy, and coined the term Fringe Diplomacy to describe the new field he is forging, an innovative discipline exploring the space in international relations just beyond the boundaries of States and Governments’ capacity and authority. He manages relationships and private diplomacy efforts in North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, Midd...

Ingrid Lehmann has spent over 25 years working at the United Nations Secretariat in the Department of Public Information and in two UN peacekeeping missions. Ingrid has an MA in history from the University of Minnesota and an MA and a doctorate in political science from the University of Berlin. She was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, a researcher at Yale Un...

Brad is a Professor of Communication, at Ohio state university.  He studies the causes, consequences, and solutions to the problem of human aggression and violence. He was a member of President Obama’s committee on gun violence, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on the topic of youth violence. His research has challenged several myths (e.g., violent media have a trivial effect on agg...

Scott Tillema is a nationally recognized leader in the field of crisis and hostage negotiations, passionately training thousands of police negotiators across the country in verbal influence. He has developed a powerful model for safely resolving crisis situations, which is now being recognized and adapted by the private sector for use in sales, communication, influence, and lea...

Blaine is a labour lawyer and member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1995, and is an expert in both the practice and theory of assisted labour/management negotiation, mediation-arbitration and facilitation. He has the Chartered Mediator (C.MED.) designation from the ADR Institute of Canada, and is a Registered Practitioner of Dispute Resolution (RPDR) through the Canadian International In...