Bio for Lawrence Ellis

Lawrence Ellis is Founder & President of Paths to Change, a network of activists, business people, scientists, spiritual teachers, thought-leaders, and other change-agents who are applying the disciplines and practices of Organizational Consulting, Engaged Spirituality & Lived Philosophy, and Strategic Activism to catalyze individual leadership capacity and to create highly effective groups, teams, organizations, communities, and social-change movements.

Paths to Change focuses primarily on how to most skillfully address the unprecedented environmental and social crises of our time, particularly where environmental and human rights concerns intersect.

Lawrence is an Oxford-trained complexity-science consultant, and a spiritual activist. He studied the application of Satyagraha (Gandhian militant non-violence) to individual and large-scale change while on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, in an interdisciplinary masters degree weaving several fields including Asian religions & ethics, psychology, the change-practices of theoretical physicist David Bohm, and others. For several years he served as a Senior Associate, and later Director, with Interaction Associates, one of the oldest consulting & training firms in the world specializing in managing organizational and community change. For two years he was a Senior Consultant with the Organizational Effectiveness Department of the Northern California branch of the American Automobile Association (AAA), a multibillion-dollar insurance, travel and road service company.

In the consulting arena, for nearly 20 years Lawrence has worked with community-based, corporate, non-profit and public service organizations using a blend of organizational development & complexity science approaches. He specializes in the areas of organization redesign, complex adaptive systems, leadership coaching & development, high performance teams, and other complementary areas of focus. He also serves as an event facilitator and workshop trainer. In the private sector, his clients range from small businesses to Fortune 1000 firms including AT&T/SBC, Blue Shield, Charles Schwab & Co., and Sematech. He was also a lead trainer of consultants for Andersen Consulting (Accenture) and McKinsey Consulting.

Throughout his formal "paid" career, Lawrence maintained a parallel career in spiritual activism — bringing spiritual and activist perspectives & practices to a range of social-change & environmental movements. A Buddhist Teacher, Mr. Ellis co-founded the Mindfulness, Diversity & Social Change Sangha (Buddhist practice community), and is mentored by renowned Buddhist Teacher and Author, Jack Kornfield.

Of African American & First Nations (Cherokee, and probably Haudenosaunee) descent, he is active in the movement to return Two Spirit people to their rightful leadership and other traditional roles in First Nations tribes — after 500 years of systematic attempts to destroy them. Related to this undertaking is the endeavor to provide the world with models of exceptional gender, sexual orientation and spiritual diversities that are wholly integrated into societies – as embodied in the Two Spirit traditions. He is increasingly active in similar movements in African Indigenous spiritual communities. Also, at the invitation of Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, he represented the U.S. in a yatra (journey) in India commemorating Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Lawrence has used his status as a spiritual teacher and leader to organize and mobilize for justice and sustainability on numerous issues — from engaging in civil disobedience to win back-wages and benefits for exploited low-wage urban workers, to encouraging human rights organizations to weave ecological considerations into their actions and campaigns. For two years he served as the Buddhist Peace Fellowship representative to the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) in the San Francisco East Bay area.

Lawrence has served in a range of roles: consulting lead on numerous corporate projects, such as a top health-insurance company initiative that generated the company’s most successful product in 30 years; spiritual activist in several arenas, including setting records for organizing faith communities and raising funds in support of justice for farm workers; facilitator for leading-edge conferences & retreats, such as a conference at Princeton University on complexity science approaches to combating AIDS globally; internal consultant, leading large-scale redesigns and other services in a multi-billion dollar insurance company; bridger of ancient and modern cultures, such as work with Navajo/Dineh leaders to weave ancient wisdom & mastery traditions into successful approaches to contemporary problems. In these and other roles, Lawrence’s approach to change is consistent. He focuses on assisting customers/clients and community members to stay true to mission, vision and values while addressing challenges such as internal conflict, increasing complexity, growth, mobilizing constituents, and tougher competition. In particular, he seeks to bring more humane, just, interconnected, sustainable and spiritually-fulfilling approaches and results to individuals, groups, organizations, communities and movements.

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