Brian Ganson

Professor Brian Ganson is an expert on socio-political risk mitigation, conflict prevention and resolution, and third party roles in post-conflict and other complex environments. His research, writing, teaching and consulting focus at the nexus of business, conflict, and development.
Brian Ganson is Professor and Head of the Centre on Conflict & Collaboration at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, a platform for research and dialogue at the nexus of business, conflict and development. CCC works with business, government, labour and communities to reduce the costs of conflict and increase collaborative opportunities. He concurrently holds appointments as Professor in the Stellenbosch University School for Data Science, where he studies the intersection of human systems and data systems to improve conflict risk assessment and mitigation, and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Prof. Ganson’s focus is on particularly challenging environments. He has worked with companies, civil society organizations, and governments and intergovernmental organizations to better assess and manage risks related to mining, agricultural development, and business operations more generally in tumultuous and often enough violent socio-political contexts. His work helps emerging economies and post-conflict societies to find more peace- and development-positive pathways for private sector development.
Prof. Ganson integrates academic and field perspectives to provide practice- and policy-relevant insight. He is (among other work) co-author of the books, BUSINESS AND CONFLICT IN FRAGILE STATES: THE CASE FOR PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONS, and MANAGEMENT IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS: QUESTIONS FOR LEADERS, as well as articles in the Academy of Management Review, Global Strategy Journal, and Harvard Business Review. P He also co-leads the Business & Conflict Research Initiative, an international consortium expanding the frontiers of conflict analysis through the tools of data science. This and other research addresses the relationships between the private sector and conflict, human rights, and inclusive development.
Prof. Ganson has taught negotiation, mediation, and conflict risk mitigation for more than 30 years in both executive education and degree programmes at leading institutions including Harvard University; Stellenbosch University; and The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He was first qualified as a family mediator at age 20, and later worked in formal mediation as a practitioner, trainer, and clinical supervisor with the Harvard Mediation Program. He has worked with companies, communities, governments, and development actors to implement systems for conflict prevention and resolution at the local, national and international levels. He specializes in negotiation and mediation in contexts of social and political strife.
Prof. Ganson was previously a Senior Researcher with the Fletcher School Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, and a Director of Conflict Management Group, a non-profit consulting firm founded to apply the innovative approaches of the Harvard Negotiation Project to protracted conflicts of public importance. He was a co-founder of the Organization Practice of Mitchell Madison Group, where he consulted to Fortune 100 companies across a variety of industries. Earlier he served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. He began his career as a human rights advocate in Texas, helping to expand access to quality higher education for underserved populations.
He received his Juris Doctor with honors from the Harvard Law School, his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and his Bachelor of Arts in history with high distinction from the University of Michigan.

Experience

Brian Ganson Consulting

Consultant to senior public and private sector leaders on socio-political risk management, conflict prevention, and negotiation. Support analysis, strategy development and operational planning for particularly complex environments. Monitoring & Evaluation Expert for programs in post-conflict and volatile societies. 1998 to present.

Stellenbosch Business School

Professor and Head of the Centre on Conflict and Collaboration. Leads a platform for research and dialogue at the nexus of business, conflict and development across disciplines and institutions, working with business, government, labour and communities to reduce the costs of conflict and increase collaborative opportunities. Lecturers in conflict systems analysis, interest-based problem solving, and conflict transformation. 2010 to present.

Stellenbosch University School For Data Science

Professor. Co-leads the Business & Conflict Research Initiative, an international consortium applying the tools of data science to the analysis of conflict and the study of peace positive pathways for private sector development. 2021 to present.

Peace Research Institute Oslo (Prio)

Research Professor. Principal Investigator for a multi-year consonsortium project applying mixed methods to study the private sector, conflict, and development in Africa. 2021 to present.

Stellenbosch University Faculty Of Law

Visiting Professor. Lecturer in conflict resolution theory and mediation. 2020 to present.

Centre On Conflict, Development And Peacebuilding The Graduate Institute, Geneva

Research Associate and facilitator through the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform of research-supported multi-sectoral dialogue on the roles of economic, development, peacebuilding, government and civil society actors in conflict prevention in the context of large-scale business investment in fragile environments. 2012 to present.

The Fletcher School Of Law And Diplomacy Tufts University

Senior Fellow, Council on Emerging Market Enterprises. Launched the initiative on Strategy, Operations and Leadership for Emerging and Frontier Economies. Formerly Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching international negotiation and law & development and Senior Researcher, Center for Human Rights & Conflict Resolution. 2000 to present.

University Of Cape Town Graduate School Of Business

Adjunct Associate Professor teaching negotiation, mediation and conflict management. 2014 to 2019.

Conflict Management Group ▪ Cambridge, Massachusetts

Director for private sector programmes with the NGO founded by Professor Roger Fisher, applying innovations of the Harvard Negotiation Project to achieve practical progress in intense and protracted conflicts around the globe. 1998 to 2000.

Mitchell Madison Group ▪ New York, New York

Manager and co-founder of the Organisation Practice of a global strategy consulting firm. Advised Fortune 100 companies on organisational design and organisational performance. 1996 to 1998.

Us Department Of Education, Office For Civil Rights

Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. Primary responsibilities included budget, strategic planning, information technology and organizational performance. The Vice President three times awarded OCR the Heroes of Reinvention ("Hammer") Award for innovation in civil rights enforcement. 1993 to 1996.

Harvard Negotiation Project Program On Negotiation At Harvard Law School

Instructor. Developed context-specific capabilities in negotiation, mediation, conflict analysis and conflict management for diplomats, government officials, business executives, and civil society leaders from around the globe. 1989 to 1996.

Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. ▪ Brownsville, Texas

Attorney focusing on minority rights. Combined litigation and advocacy to achieve systemic higher education reform. Led the creation of a community-based mediation program. Court Appointed Mediator in Federal District Court cases. 1989 to 1993.

Education

Harvard Law School

Juris Doctorate awarded cum laude 1989. Ferguson Fellow in Human Rights and Development with the Legal Resources Foundation of Zimbabwe. Associate Editor of the HARVARD INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL. Research Assistant to Professor Detlev Vagts for private and public international law topics.

The Fletcher School Of Law And Diplomacy ▪ Tufts University

Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy awarded 1989. Concentrations in Public International Law, International Trade and International Conflict Management. Teaching Assistant for Tufts College course in International Law.

University Of Michigan

Bachelor of Arts awarded magna cum laude 1985. Included one year of study at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Aix-en-Provence, France. Family Mediator with Ozone House, a runaway shelter and crisis counselling centre.

Teaching

Brian Ganson designs context-appropriate courses and engages students across different environments and demographic groups, whether in academic courses or other workshops and seminars.

• Stellenbosch Business School. Professor teaching management in complex environments, corporate diplomacy, conflict analysis, and negotiation leadership for conflict-prone environments
• University of Stellenbosch Faculty of Law. Professor teaching mediation theory within the specialized LLM degree programme in alternative dispute resolution.
• Harvard Law School Program of Instruction for Lawyers. Helped design and deliver intensive training for diplomats, business executives, and attorneys
• Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City. Delivered the institution’s inaugural post-graduate intensive course in company-community conflict resolution and collaboration
• Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University. Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching international negotiation and law & development to graduate students of international affairs as well as executive education students. Nominated for the James L. Paddock Teaching Award
• University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Adjunct Associate Professor teaching negotiation, mediation and conflict management
• Corporate Seminars. Designs and delivers context-adapted workshops on negotiation and stakeholder management to companies in the U.S., Europe, Africa and Latin America
• Institute of International Relations, Suriname. Designed and delivered the institution’s first-ever post-graduate seminar in international negotiations
• Workers Education Association, Belfast. Collaborated to develop a curriculum and train trainers of leaders of divided communities in Northern Ireland
• Universidad Iberoamericana. Co-designed and delivered (in Spanish) an intensive negotiation workshop to help that institution develop its new conflict resolution program
• Herndon, Virginia Public Schools. Helped design and pilot a conflict resolution curriculum for middle school students mainstreamed into English, math, and other courses
• Texas Southmost College. While a legal aid attorney, designed and delivered the first-ever course in Brownsville, Texas to train community mediators
• Texas Bar Association. Designed and delivered intensive continuing education workshops in negotiation for legal aid attorneys
• Harvard College. Teaching Fellow for an undergraduate course on international conflict and negotiation. Received the Danforth Award for excellence in teaching

Languages

Fluent in English and French; proficient in German and Spanish

Publications

Books

• Co-author with Achim Wennmann of Business and Conflict in Fragile States: The Case for Pragmatic Solutions (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2016)
• Editor and lead author of Management in Complex Environments: Questions for Leaders (Stockholm: NIR, 2013)
• Co-author with Roger Fisher et al. of Coping With International Conflict: A Systematic Approach to Influence in International Negotiation (Prentice Hall 1997)
• Editor of Roger Fisher et al., Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping With Conflict (Harvard University Press 1994)

Book Chapters & Articles

• Co-author with Herbert M’cloed of The persistence of fragility in Sierra Leone. In State Fragility: Cases and Comparisons (N. Bizhan, ed.) London: Routledge (2023, forthcoming).
• Co-author with Wit Henisz and Tony He of Business and Peace: The Impact of Firm-Stakeholder Relational Strategies on Conflict Risk, in Academy of Management Review (2022, Vol. 47:2).
• Co-author with Wit Henisz and Tony He of “Us” and “Them”: Corporate Strategic Activism, Horizontal Inequalities, and Society’s Capacity to Address Its Grand Challenges, in Global Strategy Journal (2022).
• Co-author with Sarah Cechvala et al. of What COVID-19 Taught Us About Doing Business During a Crisis. Harvard Business Review (November 2021).
• Co-author with Kristian Hoelscher of Theorizing MSMEs in Contexts of Urban Violence, in Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (2020, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 222-241)
• Co-author with Herbert M’cleod of Private sector development and the persistence of fragility in Sierra Leone, in Business and Politics (2019, Vol 21, No. 4, 602-631)
• Co-author with John Luiz and Achim Wennmann of Business Environment Reforms in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: From a Transactions towards a Systems Approach, in Journal of International Business Policy (2019, Vol 2, No. 3, pp. 217-236)
• Author of Business and Peace: A Need for New Questions and Systems Perspectives, in Business and Peacebuilding: Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (2019, J. Miklian, ed.), London: Routledge (download PDF preview for access)
• Author of Business (not) for peace: Incentives and disincentives for corporate engagement on good governance and peaceful development in the African context, in South African Journal of International Affairs (2019, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1-24)
• Author of Plumbing for Peace, in Indivisible: Global Leaders on Shared Security (2018, Ru Freeman and Kerri Kennedy, eds.). Northhampton, MA: Olive Branch Press
• Co-author with Achim Wennmann of The Corporation and Violent Conflict: Perspectives, Policy Responses and Future Trends, in Handbook of the International Political Economy of the Corporation, A. Noelke and C. May, eds. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017)
• Co-author with Achim Wennmann of Business and Institutional Reform in Hybrid Political Orders, in Institutional Reforms and Peace Building (London: Routledge, 2016, N. Ansorg & S. Kurtenbach, eds.)
• Author of Business and conflict in fragile environments: Capabilities for conflict prevention, in Negotiation and Conflict Management Research Journal 7(2) 121-139 (2014)
• Co-author with Diana Chigas of Grand Visions and Small Projects: Notes from the Field in South Eastern Europe, in Imagine Coexistence: Restoring Humanity after Violent Conflict (Jossey Bass 2003, Antonia Chayes & Martha Minow, editors)