Joan S. Goldsmith

Joan S. Goldsmith, MA, DHL (doctor of humane letters), has been an educator, facilitator, coach, mediator, and organizational consultant with public- and private-sector organizations for over forty years, specializing in leadership, board development, organizational change, team building, strategic planning, collaborative negotiation, and conflict resolution.

She was the founder of Cambridge College, an undergraduate and graduate school for adult professionals. She became a family therapist in the late 1960s and was a member of the faculty at Harvard University, where she directed the Master’s of Arts in Teaching program. She is an adjunct faculty member Southern Methodist University and Pepperdine University Law School, Straus Institute, and has been an adjunct professor at UCLA, Antioch University, and Tokyo University Medical School.

She is a Life Trustee of Cambridge College and chair of the Board of Theatre Comique. She is a founding board member of Mediators beyond Borders and has been a member of the boards of the National Coro Foundation, The National Teachers Network, Mar Vista Family Center, and Deaf Self-Help. She is founder of Women Writers: Finding One’s Voice and A Woman’s Renaissance: Coming into One’s Own. She has been a consultant in strategic planning and leadership development for major global corporations, including Deutche Bank, Viacom, Morgan Stanley, Verizon, and Del Cabo Farms. She has been an advisor and consultant to school districts and teachers’ unions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Newark, Albuquerque, Chicago, Santa Barbara, New York City, and Newark.
As an expert on leadership development, she has coached executives of corporate and nonprofit organizations in skill development and advised on programs, strategies, and initiatives in their organizations. From 1985-1990, she was a principal at Index Group consulting and the managing director of Index China, in which she advised US corporations on business relations with China.

She is a mediator and trainer in conflict resolution specializing in workplace conflicts. She coauthored with Warren Bennis Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader (1st-4th eds.) and with Kenneth Cloke, Thank God It’s Monday! 14 Values We Need to Humanize the Way We Work, Resolving Conflicts at Work: 10 Strategies for Everyone on the Job (1st-3rd eds.); Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict: Stories of Transformation and Forgiveness; The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy; and The Art of Waking People Up: Cultivating Awareness and Authenticity at Work.