Maria has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Southampton University, UK. She grew up in the international environment of the United Nations, living in Congo, Guinea, India, Nepal, and the United States. Maria’s work focuses on creating participatory processes that invite people from all backgrounds to have conversations that matter. She designs gatherings, trainings, and longer-term initiatives that provide the opportunity for public engagement, organizational development, systemic change with long-term impact. Her focus, at this time of world wide crisis, is on we fundamentally reframing our leadership, governance and systems in order to create new ways of living and working. Maria has diverse experience such as working as a Corporate Director in Local Government in the UK, founded her own successful consulting company since 2002, co-initiated the Art of Hosting, www.artofhosting.org, and works world wide & in Greece for European Institutions, local government, private and non profit organizations, as well as in local social innovation initiatives. Maria has an enterprising spirit with a social consciousness that researches new ways of living and working. She has co-founded the Living Wholeness Institute, the SIZ in Greece, AoH Athens and Axladitsa-Avatakia a place of learning with nature in Pelion, Greece.

https://aohathina.com/

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Odysseas is a coach-facilitator and host of participatory processes. He is facilitating a variety of tools based on organizational learning, systems thinking approach and a range of participatory processes for business, social enterprises and Institutions in a range of large scale transformative work to team coaching and strategic planning. He co-founded Process Makers, a pioneer consulting company in Greece in the field of Participatory Leadership, Graphic Facilitation and systemic transformation.

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Anton sees great potential in the collaboration and unusual connections between people, sectors and organisations. His curiosity brought him to several different countries in Europe and Latin America, where he studied and worked in different roles and explored teams and organisations as living systems. He combines experience and knowledge in organisational development and consulting with expertise in facilitation and group processes. His power is to connect diverse ideas and points of view and to translate visionary ideas into concrete actions. Anton devoted the last 7 years in applying the Art of Hosting practice in Bulgaria. He is the owner of Otsreshta - a space for community events in his home town of Plovdiv. Together with Anna Dimitrova they created Open Space Collective.

Anton holds a BA in Economics and MSc in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden.

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Anna believes in the power of participation and communities. She has worked with social innovators in Paris, London, Cairo and Tunis, where she created and lead impactful programmes for collaboration between diverse organisations and sectors to create working solutions. Anna believes that authentic connection and quality conversations are key for work but are a bit forgotten. This connects her to the international Art of Hosting community and motivates her to develop the practice in Bulgaria since 2013. Anna loves cities and sees them as live laboratories for change.

Anna holds BA in Political Science from the Sofia University and a Masters degree in Social Economy and Entrepreneurship form Université Lumière Lyon 2, France.

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Vihra believes that the quality of our conversations defines the quality of our actions. That is why she creates spaces for meaningful conversations - in person, as well as online. Vihra is an Art of Hosting practitioner and applies the methods in regional and international context. You can learn more about her work at www.vihra.net.

Vihra is also an entrepreneur - she co-created Tierra Verde Bulgaria (www.tierraverde.bg) and offers alternative to people who want to live without toxins and plastic waste in their homes.

She holds Bachelor degree in International Business and Management from FH Osnabrück, Germany and MSc in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden.

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Atanas is dedicated to the positive development of people, teams and organizations, realizing transformative experiences both in the urban environment and in the wild. He has over 10 years of international experience in coaching, designing and conducting personal development, leadership, sustainability and outdoor training courses. His approach to sustainability involves working with the whole system, interacting with the environment (organization, society, nature) and is focused on meaningful change and transformation, both personally and professionally. Atanas is extremely dedicated to people and their learning, and leads processes with great passion and attention. He is a member of many international training networks, including: Art of Hosting, The Natural Step and Synergy. Atanas enjoys writing, exploring and spending time in nature.

Atanas holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Leadership for Sustainable Development from Blekinge Institute of Technology (Karlskrona, Sweden) and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Veliko Tarnovo University “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”.

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Biliana strongly believes in the richness of differences in teams and communities as a whole, and in the value that collective intelligence brings to creating innovative solutions. Everything she does in her work is about building a human-centered environment that is nourishing for the individual and their creative power. She believes that open communication, experimentation, collaboration and empathy are the ground on which people can unleash their human potential and fulfill their dreams.

She has experience in business development and marketing, design thinking and non-formal education. She is excited about psychology and the way people interact. Her work leads her from the corporate environment, through start-up businesses to NGOs with a focus on social innovation. What led her to the Art of Hosting community, is her commitment to quality conversations and the search for meaning in everything we do in our lives and work.

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Zlatina believes that relationships and connections are at the heart of systemic, meaningful, and transformative change. She creates processes which help entrepreneurs, creators and educators to connect with the deeper purpose of their work and to develop their collaboration and learning skills. She helps forming teams to organise their work so that they can better serve their mission. At the moment she works for developing learning communities and transformative education initiatives in the Netherlands. Her mastery is in empathic listening, strategic connections and encouraging people with ideas to move towards actions. She uses movement and dance to unlock deeper levels of connection and collective intelligence and applies it to systemic transformation.

Zlatina holds a bachelor degree in Business Administration with a minor in entrepreneurship by Sofia University Kliment Ohridski and a join masters degree in Policies and Management of Lifelong Learning by Aarhus University, Denmark, Deusto University, Bilbao Spain and Melbourne University, Australia.

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Suzana is a pioneer of change, leading the evolution of brand management at a higher level of consciousness. She is the author of the forthcoming book Animaway Branding where she is announcing the new paradigm in branding, anchored in systems thinking. The book is an outcome of her extensive scientific research within the doctoral studies in Solvay Brussels School and her rich business experience as consultant in brand and business development.

Formally, she is a Master of Science in marketing, PhD researcher in brand management, Service Designer for business transformation, Lego Serious Play facilitator, Social Presencing Theatre practitioner, consultant and coach for business development, Kundalini yoga Teacher and Art of Hosting practitioner.

Informally, she is a passionate change maker, innovating and designing tools for helping organizations and entrepreneurs to develop their businesses in a sustainable way. She believes that human well-being is the best indicator for a long-term and sustainable brand business success, therefore her focus in brand business design is in balance and integration: inter-personal, intrapersonal, process, communication, data, knowledge, people, and system's integration.

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