About David Gershon

David Gershon, founder and CEO of Empowerment Institute, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on behavior-change and large-system transformation, and applies this expertise to issues requiring community, organizational, and societal change. His clients include cities, government agencies, large organizations, and social entrepreneurs. He has addressed a wide diversity of issues, ranging from low carbon lifestyles, livable neighborhoods, and sustainable communities to organizational talent development and cultural transformation. Over the past thirty years the empowerment programs he has designed have won many awards, and a major academic research study described them as “unsurpassed in changing behavior.”

David used this empowerment proficiency to organize at the height of the cold war, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund and ABC Television, one of the planet’s first major global consciousness-raising initiatives—the First Earth Run. Building on his background as the Director of the Lake Placid Olympic Torch Relay, he used the mythic power of relaying a torch of peace around the world to engage the participation of twenty-five million people in sixty-two countries, the world’s political leadership and, through the media, an estimated 20 percent of the planet’s population in an act of global unity. Millions of dollars were also raised as part of this event to help UNICEF provide care for the neediest children of the world.

Gershon is the author of eleven books, including his recently published Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World, winner of the 2009 National Best Books Award, and Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds, winner of the 2007 “Most Likely to Save the Planet” Independent Publisher Book Award. He co-directs Empowerment Institute’s School for Transformative Social Change which empowers social entrepreneurs and change agents from around the world to design and implement cutting edge social innovations. He has lectured at Harvard, MIT, and Duke and served as an advisor to the Clinton White House and the United Nations on behavior change, community empowerment and sustainability issues.

About Gail Straub

Considered a pioneer in the field of empowerment, Gail Straub co-founded Empowerment Training Programs in 1981 and has offered her work to tens of thousands of people throughout America, Europe, Russia, China, Asia, and Africa. She co-directs the Empowerment Institute, a school for transformative leadership whose certified graduates are implementing the empowerment model in education, business, health, hip-hop, and social change. Gail co-authored the best seller Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It. In its twelfth printing, the book has been translated into eight languages and is used worldwide as the basis for empowerment life coaching and support groups.

Gail’s empowerment work has had an impact on women all over the world. She trained Russian activists in the empowerment methodology, helping them build a visionary leadership model for social change. She has done similar work in China where the Chinese Women’s Federation adopted the empowerment framework. Currently the Empowerment Institute’s International Women’s Empowerment Initiative is helping women in Afghanistan, Darfur, Nigeria, and South Africa to heal from violence and to build strong empowered lives. She has also consulted to many other organizations committed to women’s empowerment including the Women’s Leadership Center at Omega, World Pulse, and Feminist.com.

Taking her empowerment work to a global platform early in her career, Gail served as the International Director for the historic First Earth Run, a global initiative co-sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and ABC Television. During the height of the Cold War, a torch of peace was passed around the world, mobilizing the participation of 25 million people, 62 countries and 45 heads of state. The event raised several million dollars for UNICEF that was used to help the neediest children in the world.

In 1992, when her students requested more in-depth training, Gail created “Grace: A Spiritual Growth Training Program.” Designed to integrate spiritual development with social and ecological responsibility, the year-long program has been completed by hundreds of students throughout North America, Europe, and Russia. Based on its success, she wrote the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion: Caring for Self, Connecting with Society, and Circle of Compassion: Meditations for Caring for the Self and the World. In 2008 she published her awarding winning feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House: Taking Back the Wisdom of the Feminine. She is also a contributor to the groundbreaking anthology Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership.

Gail received her B.A. with honors in political science from Skidmore College. She has served in the Peace Corps in West Africa, and on many Boards including the Omega Institute, the Russian American Humanitarian Initiative, and The Next Wave of Women and Power. She is a faculty member at The Edge International School for Leadership and Spirituality in the Netherlands.