Walter Link

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Biographical Information

Walter Link "is an inspired pragmatist. Building on years of leading business, educational and civil society organizations around the world, Walter now focuses on strategic advice, coaching and leadership education for emerging and accomplished leaders who want to increase the effectiveness of their work and service in the world by integrating the inner dimensions of leadership.

"Walter is a co-founder and co-chair of the Global Leadership Network. He also co-founded and co-lead other international leadership networks: The Generative Dialogue Project, which cross-fertilizes leadership approaches and practitioners from around the world; The Social Venture Network in Europe, which helped to pioneer the movement for corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR); Empresa, which unites twenty CSR business organizations across the Americas; and New Voice of Business, which by co-creating a coalition of business, civic society and political leaders, recently helped to engineer the adoption of a US$3.2 billion solar energy program for California.

"Walter also co-created and taught in the U.S.’s first fully accredited MBA in Sustainable Management at Presidio School of Management in San Francisco.

"In business, Walter was a partner of B.Grimm, a now over 130-year-old South-East Asian industrial group with roots in his native Europe. B.Grimm consists of over twenty companies operating in the fields of healthcare, telecommunications, engineering, infrastructure development and consumer products. B.Grimm’s partnerships and joint ventures include major European and U.S. corporations such as Carrier, Merck, and Siemens. After selling his B.Grimm participation to his brother to focus on his societal transformation work, Walter became an investor and venture capitalist in companies pursuing social and environmental goals. He was also the managing partner of an organic farm in Germany that offers an alternative model for commercially successful and environmentally sustainable agriculture.

"Walter’s civil society engagements include helping Human Rights Watch to create its European Union office and serving on its Europe and Central Asia advisory board; being a member of the Club of Rome; advising the United Nations leadership; serving on the State of the World Forum’s Commission on Globalization; supporting Panama’s City of Knowledge in transforming a military base into a technology and NGO park, and advising Naropa University on how to develop a multi-continental on-site and online campus.

"Walter’s work and service in the world is inspired by 25 years of psychological and spiritual practice, which he has also been teaching for two decades around the world. He studied with diverse spiritual teachers, including Diamond Approach founder A.H. Almaas, Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Ram Dass, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan and Theravada Buddhist teachers. He also explored various psychological approaches, and served on the board of the European Association of Transpersonal Psychology. He co-chairs the Institute of Noetic Sciences and serves on the board’s executive committee at Omega Institute. To integrate these diverse strands of work, Walter co-founded and chairs The Global Academy, which around the world develops networks, action projects and educational programs aimed at building replicable models and paradigm innovations in the fields of Leadership, Corporate Responsibility and Responsible Investing, Social and Environmental Sustainability, Human Rights, Human Genome Technology, Integrative Medicine, Integral Education and Consciousness. Working within these diverse fields of societal innovation, Walter recognized that they are interdependent elements of a co-creative process: “Around the world, amidst the many crises and challenges, we are reinventing our civilization across all sectors of society, attempting to implement our human potential for wisdom and compassion, peace and justice, and overall social and environmental sustainability.” Walter calls this integral movement the Emerging Wisdom Civilization.

"The Global Academy now focuses on three activities: Researching the core tenets of the Emerging Wisdom Civilization and developing models for its application; Strategy development and implementation for key networks and organizations advancing the Emerging Wisdom Civilization; Leadership Education and Coaching for emerging and accomplished leaders who want to integrate Presence-based psychological and spiritual practice into their work and service in the world. "

Affiliations

• Former Director (2007), Omega Institute
• Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia Advisory Committee