Charles Holmes

Charles has 22+ years of experience facilitating meetings and large scale systems change initiatives. Specializing in organizational culture change and leadership, he has facilitated gatherings with global leaders (including the Dalai Lama), and with multinational corporations in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He is co-founder of the Academy for Systemic Change, where he works to make Vancouver one of the world’s most sustainable cities.

Charles Holmes is a master convener, gifted facilitator, skilled educator and empathetic coach. Described by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, as a ‘true social alchemist’, Charles authentically engages and connects people with ideas and possibilities to help them innovate, collaborate and deliver results they previously thought were impossible. His exceptional ability to respectfully surface and integrate disparate perspectives and approaches generates an environment of trust that effectively brings people together to create a better future. For more than two decades, Charles has designed and facilitated collaborative strategic meetings and multi-stakeholder dialogues for corporations, government, non-profits and communities. He helps organizations committed to “doing well by doing good” develop cultures where transparency, integrity and collaboration are the way business is done. His contributions allow people to bring their very best to work while they courageously do what is best for the world.

Working at the intersection of strategy and humanity, Charles asks powerful questions that invite deep reflection, generate compelling visions, and reveal new possibilities. He introduces creative processes that set learning and relationships on a new trajectory. His approach focuses attention on self-awareness, appreciation, and shared values and purpose. He works with and draws extensively from the work of numerous colleagues and collaborators including: Peter Senge, Peter Block, Meg Wheatley, Adam Kahane, Otto Scharmer, Robert Fritz, Angeles Arrien, Juanita Brown, John Milton, and Richard Barrett, to name a few.

As a co-founder of the Learning Strategies Group at Simon Fraser University’s School of Business, he has helped develop and deliver many innovative leadership and management training programs. In 2005, he helped establish the Dalai Lama Center for Peace + Education in Vancouver. He continues to produce and curate the Connecting For Change program, which has brought a wide variety of corporate and NGO leaders together in dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

As part of his commitment to creating a sustainable future for his children’s children, Charles teaches leadership, team building, facilitation and negotiation at universities in Canada and Saudi Arabia. With Peter Senge and others, he co-founded the Academy for Systemic Change, a global community for collective capacity building in business, education and community development. He has also collaborated with and provided coaching to the Business of the Environment program at Cambridge’s Sustainable Enterprise Academy.

Charles can’t help but bring people together. Whether he is working with a client or a fellow collaborator, he balances bottom line business realities—like the need for speed and impact—with passion, creativity and candor. People know they can count on Charles to help them define the future they want and then develop the capacities and culture they need to succeed.