Strategic Advisor. Heart Whisperer. Soul Guide.

Have you ever wondered how you can nimbly optimize your leadership approach for each context, encounter & challenge?  The accelerating pace of change is turning traditional leadership frameworks on their head.  Although I reference and revere the leadership models & systems of old, changing times call for a much more fluid and organic way to lead.

I wrote ‘How To Innovate: Unleash Your InnoMojo’, a simple and powerful book that gets your team communicating and innovating for business growth and success.  During my 15-year career as a corporate employee, I specialized in hyper-growth and ever-changing industries like advertising and high-technology, working with colleagues and clients on 3 continents (Europe, Asia and the US).  I have worked with and for Ogilvy & Mather, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Polycom, Cisco, Singapore Airlines and Intercontinental Hotels Group, taking their mission-critical projects from the brainstorming whiteboard to sustained multi-million dollar marketplace success.

My work now focuses on the broader pursuit of world peace and inner peace. I lend my voice through my livestreams, newsletter & podcast and online community, by advising public officials and private organizations, and by mentoring aspiring youth who want to create peaceful change for a more sustainable future.

I have a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biology, an MBA (with a specialty in Information & Knowledge Management) and am certified by the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), America’s #1 coach training school.

I divide my time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore.  My inspiration comes from the performing arts, libraries, mother nature and my loved ones.

Click here for my LinkedIn bio.

Ah, so you’re curious to learn even more about me…here we go.

I was born to loving AND logical parents, a rare combination anywhere in the world.  Dad was an engineer, Mum an educator.  Despite the troubles & burdens they had had to bear, they were excellent parents and instilled in me a passion for life, learning and leadership.  Raised to embrace a Buddhist worldview, I learned to appreciate humanity’s struggle as well as its eternal quest for inner peace & joy.

I am passionate about many things, and have spent decades discovering and mastering diverse areas of human endeavor. In college and graduate school, my rational brain was happily occupied with science, Biology and management.  In my career, I fell into and grew to love the art and science of communication.  In my solitude, I read incessantly, question tirelessly and meditate purposefully.  To channel my artsy side, I write, sing, act, improvise or dance.  And with my friends or coworkers, I listen deeply and counsel intuitively.

I first faced the notion of death when my Dad died.  I was 8.  Since then, I have mourned the loss of other loved ones and, in between, the death of many jobs and career paths (most planned, some not!).  Each personal and professional loss has led to a bigger and bolder me.  Perhaps it’s my Buddhist upbringing that keeps me resolute in the face of tragedy or potential despair.  Perhaps it’s my innate knowing that what goes down must come back up again.  Whatever the case, I’ve spent a lifetime amassing skills & mindsets that enable me to weather huge storms and consistently access a place of inner peace & equanimity.  I now teach these to people like you, so that you can lead yourself to bounce back time and again.

I enjoy provoking thought & generating new insights.  In a room of scientists, I challenge them to consider the undefinable mysteries of life or heart-centered concepts like core values and motivations.  With artists, I encourage them to incorporate more structure and strategic thinking.  When hanging out with my spiritually-minded friends, I look beyond our individual ideologies to identify the common principles that guide us on our life path.  There is gold hidden in each approach or perspective, and the best solutions come from a conscious synthesis of mind, heart and spirit.

To me, analysis is cool, but synthesis is even cooler.  In this age where information is just a click away for anyone, simply regurgitating a fact or quoting an expert is not enough.  The ability to gather disparate ideas from your world and integrate them into your life or leadership is what will give you a respected seat at the decision-making table.  And the ability to tap into not just your intelligent mind, but also your innate creativity, compassion and gut instinct, is what will make you even more powerful & transformative as a modern-day leader.

The secret to successful innovation at work starts with the ability to reinvent your own life in some way.  If you can’t be open to personal change and growth, how can you lead or participate in organizational innovation?  On that note, many of us believe that, if we have spent years trained in one field, we can’t learn or master another.  Quite the contrary.  Recent neuroscience has revealed that the brain remains plastic (i.e. capable of forming new neurons or connections) throughout our lives.  If you can conceive it, you can achieve it.  And you CAN teach an old dog new tricks!  My story is ample proof of this, and it can be your life & leadership story too.

Stop living anything less than a full, whole-bodied life.  Go on, I dare you. 🙂