Prof. Alexander Schieffer, Co-Founder, Trans4m Center for Integral Development, Geneva, Switzerland

Born in 1966 in Germany, Alexander Schieffer studied economics and business administration at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. His Doctoral thesis, also at St. Gallen, addressed new styles of organizational leadership (“Führungspersönlichkeit”). He initially worked as an executive in International Investment Banking, and then in Media and Communication with the media giant Bertelsmann. He then moved to Singapore where he founded and built up a leading special-interest publishing house, which he sold in 2002 to a Chinese media conglomerate. At this point, Schieffer took a small step back from business and entrepreneurship to pursue his passion of bringing about transformation in the economic and social sphere. He founded CELL: Center of Excellence for Leadership and Learning (www.c-cell.com), a consultancy network based in Munich specializing in innovative design, leadership and transformation of organizations. In 2006, with his South-African colleague Prof. Ronnie Lessem, he established a new Center for Integral Development called TRANS4M (www.trans-4-m.com), headquartered in Geneva. The center focuses on “transformational education” and “research for innovation”. At the heart of TRANS4M’s work is its integral approach – one of the most innovative (and globally tested) approaches to societal transformation in the field. All of Trans4m’s cutting edge programs are geared towards addressing burning socio-economic issues on the ground, and are spread across Africa (from South Africa to Zimbabwe to Nigeria), in the Middle East (Egypt and Jordan), in Asia (Sri Lanka, India) and Europe (Switzerland, Germany, UK). In parallel, Schieffer is an engaged and dynamic professor, and teaches management, economics and development at universities around the world. At the University of St. Gallen, he teaches a course on International Development.

Schieffer is an impassioned writer of both academic and literary works. His academic writing addresses topics of personal, organizational and societal transformation. He is Co-Editor (together with Ronnie Lessem) of a Gower-Ashgate book series on “Transformation and Innovation”. Recently, he has co-authored “Transformation Management: Towards the Integral Enterprise” (2009), “Integral Research and Innovation” (2010), “Integral Economics” (2011), “Integral Dynamics” (2013). Their latest, upcoming (February 2014) addition to this series is entitled “Integral Development: Realising the transformative Potential in Individuals, Organisations and Society”.

Schieffer’s core concern – in his professional work, his teachings and his poetry – is the inner transformation of the human being, and of society. This concern is also intensely articulated in his latest book (forthcoming 2014), co-authored with his wife, Indian-French political scientist and peace expert Rama Mani, “One Hundred Days – Dialogues of Silence”.

Email: schieffer@trans-4-m.com