Audrey E. Kitagawa, J.D.
President and Founder
"In the seemingly ordinariness of daily living is the power of transformation. Individual transformation arises out of awareness, and a willingness to change to become a better person right where we are. We each have personal responsibility and collective responsibility to make positive changes here and now."
Background
Dr. David C. Korten is the founder and president of the Living Economies Forum, co-founder and board chair emeritus of YES! Magazine, and a full member of the Club of Rome. He is best known for his seminal books framing a new economy for the Ecological Civilization to which humanity must now transition. He is an Ambassador of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and serves on the advisory boards of the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation and the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring.
Korten worked for more than thirty-five years in preeminent business, academic, and international development institutions before he turned away from the establishment to become a leading critic of a global economy dedicated to the exploitation of people and Earth to grow the fortunes of billionaires and became a leading proponent of deep transformation.
Trained in psychology, organization theory, business strategy, and economics, he devoted his early career to advancing business education in low-income countries. With his wife, Fran Korten, he set up the College of Business Administration in the Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, while completing his doctoral studies at the Stanford Business School. He completed his military service during the Vietnam War as a captain in the US Air Force with duty at the Special Air Warfare School, Air Force headquarters command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency.
A holder of earned MBA and PhD degrees from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, he served for five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School teaching in its MBA, PhD, and middle management programs as a Visiting Associate Professor and serving as its faculty advisor to the Central American Management Institute (INCAE) in Nicaragua and Dean of the INCAE MBA Program. He then headed a Ford Foundation funded Harvard Institute for International Development project to strengthen the organization and management of major national family planning programs in Asia and Latin America. He and Fran taught a graduate course on family planning management at the Harvard School of Public Health.
In the late 1970s, he and Fran left US academia and moved to Southeast Asia, where they lived for nearly fifteen years. Fran was a path breaking Ford Foundation grant maker in the Philippines and Indonesia and for a time headed the Ford Foundation office in the Philippines. David advised innovative projects throughout Asia, first as a Ford Foundation project specialist and later as Asia regional adviser on development management to the US Agency for International Development.
In 1988, David separated from establishment institutions to work with leading Asian non-governmental organizations on identifying and addressing the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of civil society organizations to function as strategic catalysts of positive national and global change. He and his colleagues concluded that the root cause of development failure resides in economic models and policies promoted by the United States to advance the consolidation of global corporate rule. In 1990, he founded the People-Centered Development Forum, now the Living Economies Forum, to engage with colleagues from around the world to expose the failures of established economic models and advance alternatives.
In 1992, he and Fran returned to the United States to share with their fellow Americans the lessons of their years abroad.They settled in a New York apartment near Union Square between Madison Avenue and Wall Street, where he wrote When Corporations Rule the World (1995, 2001, 2015). It launched in 1995 and became an international bestseller. In 1994, he participated in the formation of the International Forum on Globalization and was an IFG Associate for nearly 10 years as itsAssociates mobilized a powerful global resistance against the globalization of corporate power ultimately disrupted by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and a brutal global suppression of civic expression.
In 1998, he and Fran moved from New York City to Bainbridge Island, Washington where Fran became executive director and publisher of YES! Magazine and David wrote in succession The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism (1999); The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (2006); Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth (2009, 2010),and Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a LivingEarth (2015). In 2001, he participated in founding the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and served as a founding board member through 2012. With John Cavanagh, he co-founded and co-chaired the New Economy Working Group (2008 – 2016).
Now in his 80s, he works with global thought leaders on envisioning and advancing a human transition to an Ecological Civilization organized around deeply democratic self-governing living communities in which people work in co-productive partnership with the rest of nature to secure the wellbeing of people, nature, and a living Earth.
Background
Audrey E. Kitagawa, JD, is the President/Founder of the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation, the President of the Light of Awareness International Spiritual Family, the former Advisor to the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict at the United Nations.
She is a United Nations Representative for the United Religions Initiative, and Chair Emerita of the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns, A Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. She has been enstooled into the royal family as the Nekoso Hemaa, (i.e. Queen Mother of Development), of Ajiyamanti in Ghana, West Africa, and has a school which she helped to build named after her in her African name, the Nana Ode Anyankobea Junior Secondary School.
She wrote the chapter, Crossing World Views, The Power of Perspective in the Hawaii Japanese American Experience, which was published in a book about multiculturalism, communication and Asian women entitled, Learning In The Light. Her chapter, Globalization As The Fuel For Religious And Ethnic Conflict has been published in the book, Globalization And Identity, Cultural Diversity, Religion and Citizenship. Her article, The Role Of Identity In The Rise And Decline of Buddhism In Hawaii, The 50th State Of The United States Of America, has been published in Sambodhi, a Buddhist Journal. She published articles in World Affairs The Journal Of International Issues, entitled, The Power of Om: Transformation of Consciousness, and Practical Spirituality. She wrote the chapter, The US In Foreign Affairs: Source of Global Security, Or Source of Global Fear? in the book, America & The World The Double Bind. She is currently writing a chapter on Space Ethics for a legal, academic book on Space Law.
She has been listed in Who's Who Of American Law, Who's Who Of American Women, Who's Who In America, Who's Who In The World, and Prominent People of Hawaii. She is the recipient of the Medal “Pride of Eurasia” and a Diploma from the Republic of Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University for her outstanding contribution to the development of spiritual culture and education in Eurasia. She is the recipient of the Spirit of the UN Award which is given to outstanding individuals who have demonstrated the vision and spirit of the United Nations as expressed through the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was conferred an Honorary Interfaith Minister degree by the New Seminary.
“Seeking the pathway to a future that works for all.”
Biography
Dr. David C. Korten is the founder and president of the Living Economies Forum, co-founder and board chair emeritus of YES! Magazine, and a full member of the Club of Rome. He is best known for his seminal books framing a new economy for the Ecological Civilization to which humanity must now transition. He is an Ambassador of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and serves on the advisory boards of the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation and the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring.
Korten worked for more than thirty-five years in preeminent business, academic, and international development institutions before he turned away from the establishment to become a leading critic of a global economy dedicated to the exploitation of people and Earth to grow the fortunes of billionaires and became a leading proponent of deep transformation.
Trained in psychology, organization theory, business strategy, and economics, he devoted his early career to advancing business education in low-income countries. With his wife, Fran Korten, he set up the College of Business Administration in the Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, while completing his doctoral studies at the Stanford Business School. He completed his military service during the Vietnam War as a captain in the US Air Force with duty at the Special Air Warfare School, Air Force headquarters command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency.
A holder of earned MBA and PhD degrees from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, he served for five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School teaching in its MBA, PhD, and middle management programs as a Visiting Associate Professor and serving as its faculty advisor to the Central American Management Institute (INCAE) in Nicaragua and Dean of the INCAE MBA Program. He then headed a Ford Foundation funded Harvard Institute for International Development project to strengthen the organization and management of major national family planning programs in Asia and Latin America. He and Fran taught a graduate course on family planning management at the Harvard School of Public Health.
In the late 1970s, he and Fran left US academia and moved to Southeast Asia, where they lived for nearly fifteen years. Fran was a path breaking Ford Foundation grant maker in the Philippines and Indonesia and for a time headed the Ford Foundation office in the Philippines. David advised innovative projects throughout Asia, first as a Ford Foundation project specialist and later as Asia regional adviser on development management to the US Agency for International Development.
In 1988, David separated from establishment institutions to work with leading Asian non-governmental organizations on identifying and addressing the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of civil society organizations to function as strategic catalysts of positive national and global change. He and his colleagues concluded that the root cause of development failure resides in economic models and policies promoted by the United States to advance the consolidation of global corporate rule. In 1990, he founded the People-Centered Development Forum, now the Living Economies Forum, to engage with colleagues from around the world to expose the failures of established economic models and advance alternatives.
In 1992, he and Fran returned to the United States to share with their fellow Americans the lessons of their years abroad.They settled in a New York apartment near Union Square between Madison Avenue and Wall Street, where he wrote When Corporations Rule the World (1995, 2001, 2015). It launched in 1995 and became an international bestseller. In 1994, he participated in the formation of the International Forum on Globalization and was an IFG Associate for nearly 10 years as itsAssociates mobilized a powerful global resistance against the globalization of corporate power ultimately disrupted by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and a brutal global suppression of civic expression.
In 1998, he and Fran moved from New York City to Bainbridge Island, Washington where Fran became executive director and publisher of YES! Magazine and David wrote in succession The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism (1999); The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (2006); Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth (2009, 2010),and Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a LivingEarth (2015). In 2001, he participated in founding the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and served as a founding board member through 2012. With John Cavanagh, he co-founded and co-chaired the New Economy Working Group (2008 – 2016).
Now in his 80s, he works with global thought leaders on envisioning and advancing a human transition to an Ecological Civilization organized around deeply democratic self-governing living communities in which people work in co-productive partnership with the rest of nature to secure the wellbeing of people, nature, and a living Earth.
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