The Global Dialogue Collective in a Nutshell

The Global Dialogue Collective

A community committed to advancing dialogue in the world.

We are a global and dynamic community of dialogue practitioners, each responding in our own way to different challenges, problems and needs in our respective communities. Our world is in conflict, fueled by a human values crisis, the absence of critical (self-) reflection, and our growing inability to communicate with one another, across differences. We view dialogue as a transformative tool that holds the potential to engage minds, hearts and souls, to expand our understanding and build our capacity for compassion, coexistence and humility. Our Collective is a learning community that supports, inspires and challenges each other in our dialogic practices around the world, with the conviction that each dialogue encounter inches us closer to a more peaceful world.

Our values

GDC…

Supports deliberate practice and commitment to learning and improvement through peer feedback

Upholds the values of respect, inclusion, diversity and equality that underpin all dialogue

Embraces and learns from all voices in the room, building interconnectivity and interdependence across differences

Prioritizes practical application of dialogic methods, bringing to life collective design, learning, and action with dialogue practitioners and facilitators in our global community

Board Members

The all-volunteer GDC Board of Directors is a small group of international dialogue practitioners committed to the mission of advancing dialogue around the world. The team organizes activities, responds to community interests and queries, explores partnerships, and ensures that financial and legal requirements for maintaining a 501c3 nonprofit organization are met.

We welcome community members to participate, lead activities, and shape the future direction of GDC’s work.

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Mino Akhtar

Mino Akhtar is President of the Global Dialogue Collective. Mino has been a dialogue practitioner for 30 years in both corporate and non-profit settings. She worked with The Dialogue Project which hosted dialogue in Manhattan around Palestine/Israel conflict. She was co-founder of the Bergen County NJ Womens Interfaith Initiative. She also served the Global Women’s Fund, NJ Women’s Fund and Together Women Rise in strategic planning, change and leadership roles.

In corporate settings, she worked in IT on Wall Street for 20 years before changing careers to organizational change. She facilitated leadership and team development incorporating dialogue in change and innovation initiatives in global and intercultural settings in financial services, telecommunications and pharma industries.

She is an advisor/consultant to WISE (wisemuslimwomen.org) to advance the status of Muslim women. She has a BS in Computer Science from CUNY and an MA in Transformative Leadership from California Institute of Integral Studies.

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Rebecca Cannara

Rebecca is Executive Director of Universal Human Rights Initiative. She has worked in social work and education for 25 years. She has served youth and families experiencing homelessness, developed a cooperative preschool, and produced online curriculum on mathematics and on homelessness. She received her master’s in Education from UCLA, where she trained in the University of Michigan model of intergroup dialogue and conducted research on providing dialogue as part of the professional training of pre-service educators.

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Manya Arond-Thomas

Manya Arond-Thomas, M.D., has been a cultural creative, human rights, and peace activist since age 13. With a background as a healer, massage therapist, integrative physician/psychiatrist, and organizational development consultant, she has dedicated her career to health, wellness, and transformation. Introduced to the Enneagram in 1974, she now works as a Certified Enneagram teacher and coach, supporting personal, leadership, and team growth, and continues her studies in the Diamond Approach. For over 25 years, she has practiced Dialogue and co-founded Zeitouna, a Jewish-Palestinian women’s dialogue group that has met since 2002 and become a national educational resource. Manya believes Dialogue is a vital skill for fostering understanding, addressing complex challenges, and creating peace. She holds a B.A. from Harvard, an M.D. from the University of Massachusetts, and multiple certifications in organizational development, coaching, facilitation, and the Enneagram.

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Trina Talukdar

Trina started working in Kalighat, one of Asia’s largest red light areas, at the age of 18. Her interaction with commercial sex workers spurred her passion to co-found Kranti at the age of 22. Kranti empowers girls from MumbTrina started working in Kalighat, one of Asia’s largest red light areas, at the age of 18. Her interaction with commercial sex workers spurred her passion to co-found Kranti at the age of 22. Kranti empowers girls from Mumbai’s Red Light Areas to become social change leaders.
Trina was Director of Venture and Fellowship, South Asia, for Ashoka, a global organisation across 90 countries, investing in the leading social entrepreneurs of our times. Trina led Ashoka both in South Asia and Southern Africa. Trina worked with American Express, Philanthropy, in Washington, D.C. and New York, where she built American Express’ leadership program for non-profit professionals.
Trina continues to be a serial social entrepreneur, kick-starting critical development work in the field of 21st century leadership. Her most recent venture is Bolti Bandh, that builds dialogue between politically polarised people. As Chief Visioning Officer at Fields of View, Trina started her journey of building serious games, simulations and experiential activities to spark dialogue, and she continues to do so in her current role in Kshetra Foundation for Dialogue’s leadership team.

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Tom O’Connor

Tom O’Connor, Ph.D., is internationally recognized for his communication, facilitation, and cultural-change skills. His companies, Transforming Corrections & Transforming Communication, use dialogue and implementation science to help agencies advance the implementation of evidence-based practices and achieve better outcomes for their clients, the community, and staff. Better conversations, better outcomes. Tom grew up in a working-class area in Dublin, Ireland and now lives as a dual citizen in the US, in Salem, Oregon. He has degrees in law, philosophy, theology, counseling, and religion. He lived as a friar (a wandering monk) for nine years with the Catholic religious order called the Carmelites. In his work Tom integrates several strands of learning such as David Kantor’s theory of structural dynamics, the evidence-based practices of Motivational Interviewing, the work of Bob Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey on adult development, Ron Heifetz’s work on adaptive change, and Bernard Lonergan’s philosophy of consciousness and interiority. Following Lonergan, Tom believes that “authentic collaboration is the source of legitimate power”, and that dialogue is central to authentic collaboration.

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Nancy Dixon

Nancy is the founder of Common Knowledge Associates, a consulting firm that helps organizations create conversations where knowledge transfer happens, knowledge sharing is rampant, knowledge is created, and where innovation arises. Before founding Common Knowledge Associates in 2000, Nancy was a Professor at the George Washington University for 15 years, and before that at the University of Texas, in Austin. She holds a Ph.D. in Administration with a minor in Sociology. She is the author of over 40 publications including eight books, among them, Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know, Dialogue at Work, Perspectives on Dialogue, and The Organization Learning Cycle. Among others, Nancy has served as a consultant to Americares, Seed Global Healthcare, USAID, Zimmer Biomed, and the World Bank Group.

What she cares deeply about is that the people who work in any organization have a voice to influence what their organization does and what it stands for. Her aspiration is to help make organizations worthy of organizational members putting their life’s blood into their work, because
all of us have a desire to have our labor serve something that we view as worthy. She believes that happens when organizations learn how to hold dialogic conversations.

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Maja Nenadović

Maja is a dialogue practitioner, program design consultant, monitoring and evaluation specialist, facilitator, civic and human rights education trainer. As an international debate coach, she has worked in 40+ countries worldwide. Since 2012, she has implemented “Across Divides – Training Workshops for Depolarizing Communication”, a methodology developed and tested in the field through a series of workshops and dialogues with both people using discriminatory and hate speech rhetoric and with individuals targeted by it. Maja holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam, on the subject of Monitoring & Evaluation in the area of democracy promotion. She is the co-founder of Reflectory, a consultancy working in the fields of conflict transformation, participatory democracy, civic engagement and social cohesion.

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Kailash C. Khanna

My professional life has a singular theme of creating beneficial improvements through technology in five FORTUNE 500 global corporations, where I held executive systems and technology positions. I led and participated in many organizational and cultural changes that came with numerous conflicts and resistances, requiring a variety of communications to resolve and overcome. I have served on the Board of Directors of Sanchez Computer Associates (NASDAQ) , and on the Advisory Boards of several private firms and startups, and Non-Profit organizations.

Our community

Core to GDC’s success is the involvement of dialogue practitioners from different countries worldwide.

Community members help shape the agenda and serve both as experts and as learners.

To date, our growing list of participants in different activities includes individuals from 20+ countries. They each bring rich and unique perspectives, experiences, and expertise that foster learning and growth.

Stay tuned to this page as we will post profiles of GDC community members in the near future!

Invitation to join

GDC is an open community. There are no fees or restrictions to participate.

We invite you to become an engaged voice in building the GDC. Together, we can be far more effective in helping everyone, everywhere make dialogue a part of their life.

We ask only that you be a value-driven, dialogue practitioner committed to advancing your work and the practice of dialogue. We also welcome everyone curious to learn more about dialogue and seeking to enhance their dialogic skills. Our community consists of members eager to share with each other, critically reflect on and develop their skills, and build a global, multicultural, and diverse community of peers and fellow practitioners from all parts of the globe.

The best way to experience GDC is to participate in an upcoming program, subscribe to our mailing list, and share some information about yourself and your interests. We will reach out to you to learn more and to explore together in what way your participation in GDC’s activities can be mutually enriching!

Donors & Supporters

The Global Dialogue Collective Inc is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in the State of Massachusetts in the United States in 2023.

As a young organization, its work is currently funded exclusively through personal tax-deductible donations and volunteer efforts of the Board.

If you are passionate about advancing dialogue around the world, as a way of fostering social cohesion, healing fragmentation, supporting participatory and deliberative community practices, strengthening critical thinking and self-reflection, or safeguarding democracy. Please get in touch with us!

Global Dialogue Collective

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