Prof. Cezary Wójcik

Founder and Academic Director Professor of finance and leadership, the founder of the Center for Leadership, former visiting scholar at Harvard, Berkeley, Melbourne, Glasgow and other universities. He studied at Harvard University where he completed, among other things, a Master Class for Leadership Educators. He also completed a number of management and leadership programs at other schools, such as IESE Business School and HEC Paris.

In 2011 he received a Letter of Achievement in recognition of his dedication to leadership development from Harvard Kennedy School Government (HKS).
In the past served as: Member of Macroeconomic Council to the Minister of Finance, Advisor to the Governor of the National Bank of Poland, Chief Economic Advisor to the board of WestlB Bank, Director of Bureau of Integration with the Euro Area at the National Bank of Poland, Director of the Institute of Economics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. As one of the very few Poles worked at three central banks: European Central Bank, Austrian National Bank and National Bank of Poland. Served also on expert panel evaluating Greek bail-out program at the European Court of Auditors.

In 2016, in a study conducted by “Rzeczpospolita”, he was ranked 1. - as the best candidate for the Monetary Policy Council in Poland. In the same year, he was the official candidate of the opposition for this position. Also in December 2009, in a ranking of the best candidates for the Polish Monetary Policy Council, he was nominated as one of the first six best candidates. Also in 2009, before he was 35, he was appointed professor of economics, one of the youngest in Poland.

Professor Wójcik is the author and co-author of a number of academic papers and nine books published in the USA, the UK, Germany, Austria, Estonia and Hungary. His work has been published and quoted in renowned foreign newspapers: The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, Handelsblatt. He has been regularly publishing in Polish dailies suh as Rzeczpospolita and Gazeta Wyborcza.

In a study for 2001–2006, he topped the list of most quoted Polish economists in world academic journals. The SSRN database – the largest global electronic repository of academic papers in social sciences – classifies him in the top 5% of academics in the world.

He has received both of the most important prizes awarded to economists in Poland: in 2008, he received Bank Handlowy’s award for his special contribution into the area of finance and economics; and in 2009, the award of the Prime Minister.

He has been awarded many scholarships, including a Fulbright scholarship (twice), a scholarship of the Polityka Weekly, a scholarship of the Foundation for Polish Science, a scholarship of the Minister of Science and Higher Education, and many others.

He is fluent in Polish, English and German, and speaks Spanish and Russian.

He is married, has two children, and is a happy person.

Prof. Ronald Heifetz

Harvard University Ronald Heifetz founded the Center for Public Leadership and is the King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. Heifetz speaks extensively and advises heads of governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations throughout the world. He co-developed the adaptive leadership framework.

His research focuses on creating a conceptual foundation for the study of leadership, creating teaching, training, and consulting methods for leadership practice, and building the adaptive capacity of organizations and societies.
His first book, Leadership without Easy Answers, (1994) is a classic in the field. Read widely as a foundational text, it is one of the 10 most assigned course books at Harvard and Duke Universities. He coauthored the best-selling Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading with Marty Linsky (2002), which serves as one of the primary go-to book for practitioners across all sectors, and the field book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organization and the World, (2009) with Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow.

Heifetz is also well-known for developing transformative methods of leadership education and development. His courses on leadership at Harvard are legendary. Drawing students from throughout Harvard’s graduate schools and neighboring universities, they have consistently won the alumni award for the Kennedy School’s most influential course. His teaching methods are the subject of the book, Leadership Can Be Taught, by Sharon Daloz Parks (Harvard Business Press, 2005).

A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, and the Kennedy School, Heifetz is a physician and cellist. He trained initially in surgery before deciding to devote himself to the study of leadership in public affairs and business. Heifetz completed his medical training in psychiatry. As a cellist, he was privileged to have studied with the great Russian virtuoso, Gregor Piatigorsky.

Prof. Dean Williams

Harvard University Dean Williams is a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, based at the Center for Public Leadership. He is the author of “Leadership for a Fractured World: How to Cross Boundaries, Build Bridges, and Lead Change” and “Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges”.

At Harvard Dr. Williams serves as the director of the popular executive education program Global Change Agents: Leading with Commitment, Creativity and Courage. He also directs the World Leaders Interview Project.
He has done a significant amount of advising to governments and corporations around the world. Most recently he served as Chief Adviser to the President of Madagascar, helping the country launch a rapid development process. He has also worked extensively with the governments of Nigeria, East Timor, and Brunei. He has also served as a consultant with the Singapore government’s National Productivity Board, and is currently the director of the innovative Social Leadership Singapore program that brings government, business, and NGOs together to address the complex and demanding social challenges facing the nation.

Dr. Williams was born and raised in Australia. He has lived with tribal groups in the jungles of Borneo, did his graduate degrees at Harvard, studied leadership development processes in Japan, and spoken on leadership and change all over the world.

Prof. Hugh O’Doherty

Harvard University Raised in Northern Ireland, Hugh O’Doherty teaches leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and is a Senior Associate with Cambridge Leadership Associates. 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 Irish Civil Service, the American Leadership Forum, the Episcopalian Clergy Leadership Program, the National Conservation Leadership Institute, and the Mohawk Community Leadership Program in Canada. He has also consulted in Bosnia, Croatia, 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.

Hugh earned an M.Ed and Ed.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Prof. Timothy O’Brien

Harvard University Tim O'Brien, Lecturer in Public Policy, teaches Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change and Developing People at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also chairs the Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict & Courage executive program. His research focuses on adult development, identity formation, experiential learning, clinical teaching methods, and leadership education. Tim has also taught leadership at INSEAD business school's Management Acceleration Program and served as faculty for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Programs in Professional Education. He trains and consults with Public, Private, NGO, and Non-Profit organizations to help leaders orchestrate systemic interventions and overcome powerful status quos that resist learning, innovation, and adaptation.

Tim holds a B.S. from NYU and an Ed.M and Ed.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Human Development and Education. He is a member of The Academy of Management and The A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems. He earned his 100-ton captains license while directing sail-training programs aboard traditionally-rigged wooden schooners in the Atlantic and Caribbean.

Prof. Niro Sivanathan

London Business School Prof. Niro Sivanathan is a world leading expert in negotiations and decision-making and one of the world’s best negotiations educators. His research and teaching have received international recognition and has been published in leading scientific journals.

His work has garnered international press coverage at CNN, Financial Times, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Sunday Times and Forbes.

Prof. Sivanathan’s research explores how the psychology of the self – specifically our motivation to maintain the integrity of the self – influences decision-making. In addition, he explores how social hierarchy, through the psychological experience of power and status, regulates our judgment and behaviours.