Shawn Dunning is a freelance consultant, having recently resigned as the COO of the organizational development company, Adventure Associates, Inc. (AAI), in order to pursue his passion for collaborative problem-solving more broadly.  During his tenure with AAI, Shawn developed and facilitated leadership, team development, and conflict resolution programs for corporate, government, and non-profit groups throughout the United States.  Prior to AAI, he directed the “Leadership Wisdom Initiative” and then founded and directed the Leadership & Training division for the international conflict transformation organization Search for Common Ground.  Initially based in Washington DC, and eventually moving to Jerusalem,  Shawn led projects throughout the world, including the United States, Middle East, Balkans, Africa, and Southeast Asia that developed the capacity of emerging and elite political and civil society leaders to lead from a basis of common ground principles. A seasoned trainer, facilitator, mediator, leadership coach, and public speaker, Shawn has served thousands of women and men around the world to develop their collaborative leadership skills.  On a mountaintop or in conference center, Shawn’s approach leverages highly experiential methods as he facilitates engagements in ways that participants uncover their own wisdom, solutions, and potential for high achievement rather than via traditional teaching or lecture techniques. Whether working with aspiring individuals, intimate teams of senior executives or elected leaders, Shawn always employs appreciative inquiry practices, which drive success based on discovering and leveraging nuggets of what works rather than avoiding the plethora of what doesn’t. Given his experience working with diverse groups in diverse places, Shawn is always ready for unique challenges and thrives on the seemingly impossible, which is why so many clients continue to invite him back, year after year. He believes that anything is possible, and he is always willing to go the extra mile to make it happen. His clients have included gifted youth, young international scholars, senior government officials and leaders, senior executive leaders of fortune 500 companies, and business leaders from around the world.  He is an expert in workshop design and experiential learning processes. Recent and ongoing trainings include team development for the United States Antarctic Program’s South Pole Team, leadership development for emerging leaders in West Africa, leadership training and coaching for Palestinian and Israeli social entrepreneurs, political,  business, and religious leaders, crisis-management communication skills for political leaders in Lebanon, “common ground talk” skills for television journalists in Kenya, and racial reconciliation work with members of Congress in the United States.  Shawn studied Speech Communication and Psychology as an undergraduate at California Polytechnic State University (“Cal Poly”) and holds an M.S. in Conflict Analysis & Resolution from George Mason University, where he developed foundational theory and practice for “Adventure-Based Conflict Resolution.”  Shawn is also an alumnus of the international education program, Up With People, where he spent a year traveling the globe with a cast of 130 people from 30 different countries to conduct community service activities and produce a Broadway-style performance.  He has presented at a variety of conferences across several disciplines on topics related to leadership and conflict resolution, and he has served on the roster of certified mediators for the Supreme Court of Virginia.  Shawn is a qualified administrator of several leadership and personality assessment instruments including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DISC, and Emotional Intelligence.