Arian Ward

Arian Ward is co-founder, principal coach/facilitator, and CEO of Community Frontiers.  Arian works predominantly in the areas of strategic planning and governance, leadership coaching, body of knowledge/knowledge management, and community and organizational development and transformation. He has guided successful introduction and implementation of breakthrough approaches to these within numerous non-profit organizations; the UN, EC, NASA, and other government entities; local communities; and business corporations.

Arian is one of the world’s most experienced designer/facilitators of World Cafés (www.theworldcafe.com), a highly innovative means of engaging groups in meaningful, energizing dialogue around questions that really matter. He has designed and facilitated over 400 World Café dialogues since participating in its co-creation in 1995.  Arian has pioneered the use of World Café approaches and principles in organizational transformation, resulting in the evolution of a “living organization” built upon a “living strategy”™ that truly lives within the minds, hearts, relationships, and behaviors of the organization.  Living Strategy™ serves as a major enabler of this whole system transformation, starting with dialogue-based strategic planning and governance, and then “rippling out in waves” of dialogue and collaborative action to gradually engage all organizational stakeholders in co-creating the future of the organization and the community of stakeholders it serves.

From 1991 to 1999, Arian was an executive for Hughes Space & Communications Co. (HSC; now part of Boeing Satellite Systems), the world's top producer of commercial communications satellites. As Leader of Collaboration, Knowledge and Learning, he led HSC's efforts to understand, manage, leverage, and expand its human capital. He was the principal visionary and champion for HSC's knowledge sharing and re-use, competency management, communities of practice, and intranet efforts, and one of the early pioneers in successfully implementing these within a large corporation using grass roots, community-based approaches. His efforts led to HSC being named a knowledge management best practice company in 1996. It also resulted in Arian’s work being benchmarked by over 50 major worldwide organizations and being featured in over a hundred different books and articles, including numerous issues of Fast Company and a Fortune magazine cover story.

Prior to joining Hughes, Arian was a management consultant for Ernst and Young, specializing in organizational change, business process reengineering, and business systems analysis and design in a wide range of organizations and situations. The balance of his long and varied career has taken him through most functional areas, industries, and sectors, including state government and community-based organizations.

Mr. Ward is a graduate of the University of Minnesota in Management Information Systems and Anthropology. He believes in contributing to education — industry’s and society’s knowledge pipeline and future. He was heavily involved in HSC’s partnerships with the local school system and served on the Board of the partnership organization. He taught in the MBA program of the University of Southern California, using the same experiential learning methods he pioneered in the workplace. He has also designed and delivered extensive virtual training in the subject areas supported by Community Frontiers.

Arian’s broad range of experience gives him a unique perspective and skillset covering the “whole system” of a not-for-profit, commercial, government, educational, or community-based organization – from the strategic visioning and navigation of top leaders to the “nuts and bolts” of developing and sustaining the organization’s foundations (culture, org structure, business and “people” processes, information technology and systems).

The key constants throughout his career have been his focus on the future, his involvement in and leadership of change, his efforts to tap the unrealized promise of information technology, his heartfelt support of people and causes who are trying to make a real difference, and his intense interest in human potential, community, and learning. He is known for relentlessly pursuing these passions with humor and compassion in all areas of his work and life. The shift in his primary focus over the last decade to non-profits and other life-affirming organizations and causes is indicative of his desire to completely align his work with his values by emphasizing the need to make a difference in the world.

Here is how the Executive Director of the American Society for Quality characterizes his relationship with Arian and the value he provides to the association, “I remain very grateful that I found you and that you're so committed to quality, ASQ, and me. We've worked with a lot of consultants over the years and most give you what you pay for and little else, but you have given greatly more. Your investment in our journey is obvious, your care of my needs is obvious, and your depth of expertise is bottom-less. You consistently amaze me with the depth and breadth of your knowledge and resources. I feel I have a great opportunity to learn, and in so doing help our great organization to make a difference and the people involved to feel engaged and inspired by the difference. Finding you has been a God-send!”