For over 25 years, Doris Gottlieb has supported people across sectors and professions to find elegant, creative solutions for challenges arising from inside organizations, communities, and sectors of society.  Her work includes organizational change, strategy development, capacity development, leadership development, meeting facilitation, and acting as a sparring partner during change and transformation processes. She is particularly passionate about working with organizations to draw knowledge and wisdom out of people as they tackle complex problems arising because of the many changes our societies and (social) environments are undergoing.

Doris’ professional life has taken her down a rich and varied path living in three countries, the U.S. Spain, and the Netherlands, and working in different, but related professions. She began her working life as an actress, then as university lecturer in Mass- and Intercultural Communication, teaching at university level in Spain and the Netherlands. Since 2001 she has worked as an organizational and leadership development consultant. Doris has worked with clients from different backgrounds, different sectors, educational levels, and age groups. In all that she does, she is dedicated to finding ways to connect across differences in a way that honors the fullness of the people with whom she works.

A core element of Doris’ work is facilitating highly participative, interactive and generative meetings. She has found that holistic facilitation She has worked in large (100+) and small groups, with people from different cultural and educational backgrounds, and spanning all sorts of content fields. It is her firm belief, grounded in her experience, that well facilitated meetings can condition that bring forth the collective wisdom of people, making the whole truly greater than the sum of the parts. Since the early 2000s she has worked to develop both her large group facilitation, for example through the use of the Large Group method Open Space Technology, and highly participatory facilitation, specializing in a form called Whole Person Process Facilitation, one of the core methods of the Genuine Contact™ approach.

Doris’ work is grounded in the methods, tools, frameworks, and beliefs that have come to be known as the Genuine Contact™ approach. She first experienced Genuine Contact™  in 2001. The simple elegance, power, and effectiveness of the approach attracted her from the beginning. One of the hallmarks of the approach is its commitment to enabling sustainable change when setting out processes, and this is a commitment that she brings to all of her work. Doris became a Certified Genuine Contact trainer in 2011 and since then has been dedicated to teaching the Genuine Contact™ program to others in Northern Europe. As part of the larger Genuine Contact Organization, Doris is part of an international network of professionals working with the same tools, methods and processes, and dedicated to enhancing the capacity of individuals, organizations, and societies to work collectively to build more positive worlds.