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Speakers of the Program
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Gerry O'Sullivan
Gerry has 35 years’ experience in conflict and mediation work, training design and delivery and facilitation. She has published a book titled: ‘The Mediator’s Toolkit: Formulating and Asking Questions for Successful Outcomes’ and developed online training materials to accompany it, including many filmed roleplay demonstrations. Gerry delivers Mediators' Institute of Ireland (MII) accredited Certified Mediation Training. She holds a Diploma in Adult and Continuing Education and has provided training and mediation services for industry, public and semi-state bodies, inter-agency groups, organisational and workplace settings and in the local development and community sector. Internationally, she has delivered InPerson training in Palestine, Cuba, Germany and the U.K., as well as online training to other international areas.
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Victor Schachter
Vic Schachter is the founder and president of The Foundation for Sustainable Rule of Law Initiatives (FSRI), an NGO dedicated to establishing sustainable mediation centers globally to achieve timely, fair and peaceful conflict resolution in countries with backlogged court systems. He has served extensively as a mediator, and as an advocate representing clients in numerous mediations and arbitrations over his fifty year career. In addition, he has led rule of law and related educational initiatives promoting judicial reform, alternative dispute resolution and judicial case management in India, Brazil, Liberia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Republic of Georgia, Turkey, Vietnam and Malaysia, among other countries. Mr. Schachter has been honored as a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year for his service in judicial reform, rule of law and mediation building. In October, 2020, he received the Mediator of the Year Award from The Mediation Society of San Francisco for "outstanding contributions to the field of mediation."
Nandgopal Bindignevelle
Nandgopal Bindignevelle has over 3 decades of legal practice coupled with an intuitive understanding of conflicts. He has been trained as a mediator in a program jointly conducted by the Hon’ble Karnataka High Court and ISDLS, California under the supervision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. He is actively involved in promoting the concept of managing conflicts in commercial enterprises and intrapersonal disputes. He has co-authored the mediation training manual for the state of Karnataka. He has been designated as a pre-Institution Mediator, Commercial Court, 2019.
A.J. Jawad
A.J Jawad is an Accredited Digital Dispute Resolution Specialist with ADR ODR International, UK. He is a Partner and Head of ADR Services, KD Lex Chambers LLP, Gurugram and a Senior Mediator-trainer for the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee (MCPC) of the Supreme Court of India and the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre (TNMCC) with an experience of more than 15 years. He conducts basic and advanced mediation training and Training of Trainers (ToTs) for MCPC and TNMCC and civil-commercial Mediation training courses in universities in the UK and India. He is empanelled as Indiaspecialist mediator with the Singapore International Mediation Centre and the Bombay Chamber of Commerce.
Barry Greyvenstein
Barry is an SA & Internationally Accredited certified Mediator and a Training Facilitator with the South African Association of Mediators. Till May 2020, he served as the Vice Chairman of the Board to South African Association of Mediators. He completed his mediation training from North-West University, South Africa in 2014. He specializes in Family mediation and works in the area of psychology in mediation. He gives mediation coaching at South African Mediation Academy, North-West University, and Department of Social Development, South Africa. He holds certificate in Family Law, Psychology, Teaching Methodology, Language and Learning Styles.
Mihir Govilkar
Adv. Mihir R. Govilkar, in addition to his LL.B., holds an MBA from Johnson & Wales University, USA and an M.Sc. in Finance from EDHEC Business School, France. He is a Certified Mediator and Founder of Mediation Initiative. He writes on law and mediation and works extensively towards creating awareness and promoting mediation as the favoured dispute resolution method. He runs a YouTube channel called Mediation Initiative. He deals with commercial, civil, family, and matrimonial disputes. Mihir is passionate about Dispute System Design and the overall Mediation process. He hopes to create a culture of mediation throughout India over the coming years.
Victor Baba Emmanuel Aligo
Victor Baba is a JAMS Weinstein Fellow and an ordained minister, a visiting lecturer at Global University Somalia and affiliated with the Institute of Paralegal Studies and Leadership, Ghana. He is an international mediator by training and trade, with over 5 years of experience, with emphasis on the intersectionality of conflict resolution, mediation, and indigenous dispute resolution mechanisms. He is an adviser to multiple community organizations and charitable institutions as a member of the board. He is a leading advocate for third-party financing mediation as a strategic tool for closing the access to justice gap, particularly in the Global South.
Arpit Guru
Arpit Guru is an experienced lawyer and works in the areas of merger and acquisition, and advising clients from business start-ups to seasoned companies. He provides expert legal advice and oversight in large corporate negotiations. Arpit Guru has done his LL.M. from New York University- School of Law. He is certified to practice commercial mediation in the State of New York and can also practice as a Company Secretary for companies having paid-up capital of less than 10 crores in India. Arpit has worked with a few of the top law firms in Mexico. Also, he has worked with the Office of Legal Affairs, Codification Division, The United Nations, New York wherein he drafted international instruments like Treaties and Codifications. He has also served as Law Clerkcum-Research Assistant to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India at the Supreme Court of India.
Johnny Tan Cheng
Johnny was a founding partner of LT&T Architects. He practises as an independent arbitrator and has served as President of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators (SIArb) for two terms. He is an accredited mediator with SIMI and a Principal Mediator with several mediation centres including the SMC, JIMC (Kyoto), and SCMC. He is an accredited adjudicator with the SMC, and sits on the SMC’s Construction Adjudicator Accreditation Committee (CAAC) and the Singapore Infrastructure Dispute Protocol Advisory Committee.
Sethu Nair
Sethu Laxmi Nair is a mediator, facilitator, coach, and trainer in the fields of alternative dispute resolution and restorative practices. Through her work, Sethu improves interpersonal and social dynamics by enhancing leadership capacity and conflict competence among leaders and groups. Currently, she serves as Director of ADR and Restorative Practices at the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution within the New York City government. A member of Hidden Water, Sethu facilitates restorative circles to heal the impact of child sexual abuse in the family system. She teaches Conflict Resolution and Restorative Practices at Columbia University and New York Law School. Through her private practice, Sethu consults with organizations, offering a unique blend of leadership coaching and restorative conflict management.
Alan Sharland
Alan Sharland has been a Mediator since 1994. He was as a volunteer neighbour dispute mediator in Camden in North London and then started working in the field professionally as a Case Worker, freelance mediator. For 11 years, he was Director of a Community Mediation Service in West London where he and colleagues set up the first publicly available conflict coaching service in the UK in 2008. He also helped Brunel University set up the first conflict coaching service in a UK university in 2011. Alan has provided mediation in workplace disputes, family conflict, group disputes, health service primary care complaints, university student complaints and special educational needs disagreements. He set up CAOS Conflict Management in 2011 and trains people in the CAOS models of mediation and conflict coaching. He has written books on resolving workplace bullying allegations and effective communication for promoting creative responses to conflict. Alan has a YouTube channel ‘Communication and Conflict’
Arpit Chaturvedi
Arpit Chaturvedi is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Policy Insights, a Centrist Thinktank based out of India, USA, and the United Kingdom. He is an advisor at the Kyiv School of Diplomatic Arts (Ukraine) and a Co-Chair of the GPI Quad Forum, a public Diplomacy Forum for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue Countries (India, USA, Japan, and Australia). Arpit holds an MPA degree from Cornell University, an MBA degree from Symbiosis International University, and a bachelor with honours in History from the University of Delhi.
Upasana Singh
Upasana Singh is a conflict resolution professional, IMI certified mediator from the London School of Mediation, UK and High Court of Delhi, a practicing advocate, Supreme Court of India, and a learning enhancement specialist. She advises businesses, individuals, and educational institutes on methods of conflict resolution. She is the Founder and CEO of Accords International (AcIn). She holds the position of Reviewer with Indian Law Institute Law Review and Executive Editor of DME Journal of Law. She is also a Fellow with Global Policy Insights, a centralist policy institute based in India, the USA, and the UK. She is a member of Insights Collaboration International, Canada.
Akanksha Marwah
Akanksha Marwah, Co-founder and COO, Accords International is a doctoral candidate at Jamia Millia Islamia researching in restorative justice for children in conflict with law. She was engaged as a Faculty at GGSIPU and Jamia Millia Islamia from 2019 to 2022. She is a trained mediator by Samadhan, the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre. She is a learning enhancement specialist and restorative justice public speaker. She is a member of the Training Committee of DC Peace Team, USA. She is a reviewer of reputed national and international journals and had been Managing and Executive Editor of the DME Journal of Law and the DME Journal of Management.
Reema Bhandari
Reema Bhandari is empanelled as a certified mediator with the Supreme Court of India, P&H High Court, Karkardooma District Court, Delhi, and DDR commission. She has mediated & settled matters related to matrimonial disputes, commercial disputes, real estate disputes, and tenancy. She has been certified to impart mediation training by the MCPC, Supreme Court of India. She is an Advocacy trainer under the IndoBritish Advocacy Project at London on Advocacy skills training. She is a Visiting Faculty in various reputed law Colleges & Institutes, State Judicial Academies, and State Legal Authorities (Meghalaya).