About
Facilitation is a leadership skill, not a soft skill.
We train the people who convene others — directors, organizers, founders, internal leads — to run gatherings where the group actually decides, commits, and moves.
Our story
Built from decades of running hard rooms
We met at the Harvard Kennedy School as public policy students. Through Kate’s work as a facilitator and strategist with numerous partner organizations, she had been harboring a dream: to train people in the very skills that made her catalytic to their projects, so they could do it themselves. In an ever more polarized, uncertain, and dynamic world, she saw facilitation as a practice of leadership itself — one built for bridging divides, doing hard things together, and building real belonging.
Simultaneously, Charley had been deepening his work to untangle sociotechnical systems structured by power and inequality, resulting in extensive writing, interviews, and peer community development. So we joined forces, combining Charley’s systems-change expertise with Kate’s formal training in facilitation and conflict resolution.
Together, we founded the Facilitation Leadership Lab — the curriculum we wished existed. Today we teach that curriculum four ways: a free monthly community of practice, a live digital course with service add-ons, live in-person intensives, and retained coaching for leaders and teams carrying sustained group work.
Who we are
Two practitioners, 40+ years of hard rooms between us
Kate Krontiris
Co-founder. Organizational development strategist, facilitator, musician.
Kate is a facilitator, researcher, and organizational development strategist with over 20 years of experience in facilitation, mediation, and conflict resolution. Her work addresses complex public challenges, often at the intersection of technology, and draws on ethnography, user research, and design research.
She has applied that work to organizational strategy, product design, policy development, and program design, consulting for Google, Facebook, Luminate, and the U.S. Digital Service during the Obama administration. An American Sierra Leonean singer-songwriter based in Freetown, she co-founded SoundWave Creative. She is a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Kennedy School, and MIT Sloan.
- UNICEF
- U.S. Digital Service
- Harvard Kennedy School
- MIT Sloan
Charley Johnson
Co-founder. Systems change strategist, coach, facilitator.
Charley has spent more than 20 years leading multi-stakeholder systems-change efforts across sectors, including directing the Public Technology Leadership Collaborative, the Disinformation Action Lab, and the Center for Digital Development at USAID.
He now coaches and advises leaders across the private sector, government, nonprofits, and philanthropy to align technology with their vision for the future, find clarity in complexity, and facilitate change in their systems and in themselves. He holds a master's degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and writes Untangled.
- USAID
- Data & Society
- Harvard Kennedy School
Testimonials
What clients say
“Charley's strategic thinking, high EQ, deep listening skills, and ability to ask incisive questions help cut to the heart of complex and challenging group dynamics, while moving the group toward impact. He's a special facilitator and I highly recommend this course.”
NickCEO, TechChange“Kate has led several impactful workshops for the Google Social Impact team including a 2-day session with a leading group of researchers and practitioners in the civic tech field. Kate is a master facilitator whose infectious energy and passion helps groups align on strategic opportunities that build on the strengths of the participants and organization.”
JohnUX Research Lead, Google Search Social Responsibility