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 how 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, 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.

Maya Rimer is an Art of Hosting Practitioner, Group Facilitator, Gardener & Activist. She has been working as a group facilitator since the 2011 #Occupy movement. Her facilitation work born out of the need to find new tools for our change-maker communities to grow and evolve to a new way of being together and Co-Creating. Keeping true to her calling of Social Transformation Maya works in a Transparent, Open-Source and fun way to create sustainable change in groups, communities and businesses. 

Maya’s goal is to affect the organizational culture in institutions, companies and not-for-profit bodies, by enhancing communication, compassion and creativity within those groups. She has been a part of dozens of projects, groups, initiatives and communities - constantly practicing, learning and developing different Social Technologies. In 2014 Maya called the first Art of Hosting Training in Tel-Aviv, and since 2016 she has been facilitating different group processes within Grass-Root organisations in the Greek Refugee Crisis, while growing the participatory field in Israel.

For more about my story and who I am, click here 

Vanessa is a pioneering practice leader, social innovator, participatory process consultant who brings her unique leadership and artistry to the field of civil society innovation. She was executive director of Santropol Roulant, a vibrant organization founded by young people in Montreal that uses food as a catalyst for social change, environmental sustainability and inter-generational community. Ever since, she has been immersed in creating personal, organizational, societal cultures that are alive and deeply aligned with the natural cycles and transitions of living and dying. Vanessa is active in local & global networks and movements that are creating new systemic change initiatives that work with the inner and outer, the visible and invisible, and the individual and collective. This includes creating the practice ground for social labs like the Finance Innovation Lab-UK, and working with the Truth and Reconciliation process in Canada, as well transforming the “no” of protest in Greece to the “yes” of collective entrepreneurship. She is a co-founder of both the Living Wholeness Institute and the AoH-Athina. She has a Masters in Architecture and a Masters in Process-Oriented Psychology and Deep Democracy and so brings the essence of participatory design to create collective spaces of inner and outer transformation. As a writer and former publisher of the award-winning ascent magazine, she brings a depth of reflective, body and awareness practices.

Dimitris, is a young Greek who carries a dream for change. This dream comes from what his heart and mind has not been able to bear, having lived the recent economic and migration crisis in his country. Soon, he came to the realisation that trying to offer to others, when you, yourself are struggling for survival, can only be done by working collectively and not individually. Since discovering the Art of Hosting practice in 2015, Dimitris has found his calling and has become an active practitioner, embracing this as his way of living and making a living. He has since worked on several small and large scale projects in Greece and within Europe, co-designing and co-hosting different participatory processes which bring diverse stakeholders together.

Dimitris has a Bachelor Degree in International and European Studies and a Masters in Peace and Development Work. He initially cultivated his facilitation skills through training in Community Mediation and Public Dialogues Facilitation. Dimitris has been volunteering and working since 2008, holding positions in the organisation and coordination of workshops, trainings and conferences on behalf of the Greek and International Civil Society.

Mira Bangel is passionate about fostering participation, authenticity and collaboration for a meaningful purpose. Mira faces intellectual, systemic and human complexity with enthusiasm. She particularly enjoys supporting organizations and groups that feel ‘stuck’ and face uncertainty and challenges. 

 With 16 years of experience in the development of active communities, business and entrepreneurship across Europe, Mira is a seasoned host and facilitator of international participatory processes that support meaningful transformation of communities and organisations. Next to being an Art of Hosting (participatory leadership) host, Mira is also a trainer of Sociocracy 3.0, Design Thinking and non-violent communication. 

Mira is German with Iranian roots and has lived and worked in 14 countries around the globe. She is co-founder of SenseTribe, co-developer of Strong Teams Talk About Elephants and member of LearnS3. Mira holds a Bachelor degree in Communication Management, a Master of Science in Environmental Decision Making and a passion for future studies. She is certified SCRUM Master and currently in the certification process with CNVC. Mira is also fluent in 6 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch.

A visual thinker and creative at heart, Julia supports teams, organisations and individuals in their work on systems’ change and navigating complexity through visual sensemaking and process work.

Passionate about the possibilities of social change co-created by citizens, Julia spent more than 15 years working with different NGOs in Europe on themes of European integration and social transformation as programme lead, project manager and facilitator. Between 2014-19 she headed the idea challenge and civic incubator Advocate Europe which collected more than 1,600 ideas from 45 European countries and invested in 32 winning initiatives for a European future. Julia holds an M.A. in media and journalism, political science and public law from the Universities of Mainz and Paris XVII.