Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. 

Core Competencies: Executive Leader Development and Coaching; Leadership, Integral Education, Curriculum Design and Delivery (online & in person); Masterful Facilitation; Organizational Consulting; Whole Systems Design & Application 

Sean specializes in integration: Supporting leaders and organizations to navigate complexity through the inclusion of what is missing in order to create next-level success and effectiveness. He has 25 years of leadership experience, always serving in multiple major roles simultaneously. Sean brings a unique multi-sectoral and international perspective. He has been on the leadership team or advisory board of 10 companies, NGOs, and foundations. In these roles, he has worked with a variety of sectors, including international development, fast-moving consumer goods, sustainability, education, and community health. He has lived in the USA, Chad, Kenya, Bhutan, and England, worked in 9 countries, and traveled extensively. He has been the leading global academic figure in Integral Studies for over a decade driving numerous academic initiatives including: founding international conferences and symposiums, designing campus based and online graduate certificates and programs at four universities, and publishing academic journals and text books.

Sean focuses his diverse skills into two areas: Leader development and strategic vision. In the context of leader development he has designed and facilitated dozens of programs ranging in length from 5 months to multi-year. He has trained 2000+ leaders from 30+ countries. Sean is a certified Integral Coach and has clocked over 2000 hours coaching and mentoring leaders into deeper presence and skillful action.  As a senior trainer for Integral Coaching Canada he has trained 200+ coaches from around the world. Sean excels at being a catalyst for vertical development – supporting clients to hold more complexity – and horizontal integration – supporting clients to have more capacity in more contexts. He has successfully integrated developmental testing into several leadership programs with impressive statistical results demonstrating accelerated psychological development.

In the context of strategic vision, Sean has the rare capacity for seeing what is possible and then working with multiple systems and stakeholders to turn that potential into a reality. He has helped organizations create powerful strategic initiatives that support whole systems change. For example, with Natura, the leading cosmetic company in Brazil (recently voted by Forbes as the 8thmost innovative company in the world), Sean led a complex multi-year organizational development intervention that spanned across departments such as Innovation, Sustainability, Corporate Education, Leadership Development, and Waste Management. His strategic vision and pragmatic interventions helped Natura to become one of the leading companies in the world applying an integral approach to solve complex challenges.

Sean has authored a number of articles and books on leadership, ecology, and education. He is globally recognized as pioneer in the field of integral education. He is an editor for State University of New York Press of a series of applied textbooks on integrative approaches to problem solving. Also, he is the founding editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. Many of his publications are used in universities and leadership programs around the world and have been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Russian. His undergraduate studies are in Philosophy, Psychology, and Biology through Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. His Ph.D. and Master’s degrees are in Humanities from the California Institute of Integral Studies. 

Sean is the founding CEO of MetaIntegral, which is an interorganizational ecosystem comprised of three companies (a training academy, a consulting firm, and a grant giving foundation) all dedicated to the professional application of integrative frameworks and methodologies. He lives in the San Francisco area with his wife and two young daughters. Originally from the lush temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, Sean holds a deep commitment to helping leaders and organizations better respond to complex organizational, cultural, and environmental challenges.

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