Gretchen Ki Steidle, B.A., MBA
Ashland, Oregon
Gretchen Ki Steidle is the founder and President of Global Grassroots, which operates a mindfulness-based social venture incubator and women's leadership program in post-conflict East Africa. She is also founder of Circles for Conscious Change, LLC, which works with social entrepreneurs, non-profits, and corporations on the use of mindfulness as a design tool for social innovation. She is author of the book, Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation (2017 MIT Press). Gretchen is also a producer of the documentary film, “The Devil Came on Horseback”, which was nominated for three Emmy Awards in 2009 and co-author of the memoir, "The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur", (2007 Public Affairs). She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where she attended as a Jefferson Scholar. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. In 2010, she was chosen as a CNN Hero working in Haiti after the earthquake. In 2011, she was chosen one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine. She regularly lectures and offers workshops on mindfulness for social change at conferences, wellness institutions, universities and organizations globally, including the Skoll World Forum, Omega Institute, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and AshokaU Exchange, among others. In 2018, she was named to Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers.
Gretchen Ki Steidle is a trained practitioner of Coherent Breathwork and the Breath-Body-Mind program of Dr. Richard P. Brown and Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, which she has used for trauma-healing among survivors of sexual violence and exploitation, domestic violence, child abuse, chronic stress, war, genocide and natural disaster in Rwanda, Uganda, Haiti and the US through individual client work, group work and her non-profit Global Grassroots. Gretchen is also a certified Integrative Breathwork therapeutic practitioner, which she has studied and practiced since 2002, and which she utilizes individually with private clients. She also teaches experiential workshops and correspondence courses on mindfulness, Conscious Social Change, resilience and transforming tragedy to purpose in which breath and mindfulness serve as the core modality in catalyzing both personal and social transformation.
Gretchen believes that inner work and personal transformation are essential for change leaders to ensure their wellbeing and advance the most effective social change. She has worked for nearly two decades with emerging change agents in post-conflict Africa and the US, incorporating trauma-healing practices and mindfulness into social entrepreneurial endeavors. Her approach involves an integration of inner work, trauma-healing, and mindfulness skills to guide individuals back to balance and wellbeing, and a connection to their own inner wisdom. She conducts group or individual sessions in trauma-healing practices, coaches individuals in the inner work needed for effective leadership, offers correspondence courses with a circle of colleagues or as self-guided journeys, custom-designs conscious sabbaticals, and teaches mindfulness as a design tool for social change.