Lisa Heft (Opening Space) is President of the Open Space Institute of the US, a Fellow with Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution, and Adjunct Faculty with Sonoma State University's Psychology Department Organizational Development Program. She is an internationally renowned facilitator and educator known for her use of Open Space Technology and other participant-driven dialogic and interactive methods for engaging deeper reflection, learning and interchange -- whether facilitating 2500 people in a conference-wide dialogue, consulting on conflict resolution processes for teams working in Northern Iraq and East Timor, engaging interdisciplinary thinking between housekeepers, hospitality managers and CEOs for the future of a luxury resort facility, teaching interactive learning methods to monitoring and evaluation specialists from developing nations, or facilitating dialogue between prison inmates.

Clients on 6 continents include the International AIDS Conferences, U.S. Departments of Labor and Transportation, National Forum for Geosciences Information Technology, U.S. Scholar-Athlete Games, Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Inc., the partnership of United States Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps and the Centers for Disease Control in Mozambique, the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, Heifer International, Licensing Executives Society USA and Canada, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Family Health International, Bank Administration Institute, the partnership of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation, Bernardus Lodge and Winery, Quail Lodge Resort and Golf Club, Canadian Council for Tobacco Control, Earth Island Institute, One Ocean Marine Forum, and Centerforce at San Quentin State Prison.

Ms. Heft is an International Association of Business Communicators All-Star Speaker and one of the authors featured in ‘Beyond Bullets and Bombs: Grassroots Peace Building Between Israelis and Palestinians’ (J. Kuriansky, editor, Greenwood Publishing Group 2007). She is also the co-author of the Encyclopedia used by the California HIV/AIDS Hotline, curriculum such as Monitoring HIV/AIDS Programs: A Facilitator’s Training Guide (Family Health International) and Reach One / Teach One: A Prison Peer Health Education Training Program (GlaxoWellcome, co-authored with Katie Kramer), a contributor to The HeART of training: A manual of approaches to teaching about AIDS (Special Projects of National Significance) and 2006 Poet Laureate of the global Open Space community. Her articles have been featured in Systems Thinker and other magazines and she has been interviewed and featured in such publications as Convene, Corporate Meetings & Incentives, Meetings and Conventions and IEEE Software magazines. She has also authored and edited many papers on facilitation, interactive learning and community health -- her work has been translated into Spanish, Kiswahili, Swedish, Korean and Braille.