Systemic Turbulence

Dr. Simon Western is Founder and CEO of the Eco-Leadership Institute, and a globally recognised thought leader in leadership, coaching, and organisational change. He is the author of several influential books, host of the Edgy Ideas podcast, and writer of the Re-enchanting Our Worlds Substack. Simon has held senior academic and leadership roles at institutions including Lancaster University, the Tavistock Clinic, and University College Dublin, and was past-president of ISPSO. Alongside his academic work, he coaches CEOs and senior leaders internationally across all sectors. His work champions ethical, distributed leadership for a more just, sustainable, and human-centred world.

Otti Vogt is a business philosopher, leadership reformer, and thought leader working at the intersection of management, philosophy, and societal transformation. With over 25 years of global executive experience—including serving as a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Transformation Officer in ING, a top-30 global bank—Otti has established himself as one of Europe’s most original public intellectuals on the question of what makes organisations and leaders “good.”

He is co-founder of the Good Organisations Lab (in partnership with the University of St. Gallen), and a principal architect of the emerging Moral Management Theory, which aims to redefine the standards for responsible management and organisational flourishing. His work integrates rigorous philosophical inquiry with hands-on transformation leadership, bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Previously, Otti led ING’s digital transformation and operational service delivery for more than 28 million customers worldwide, following a decade of senior leadership roles at BT Global Services, spanning strategy, transformation, M&A, operations, and IT. Earlier in his career, he gained a wide range of experiences across consulting, industry, non-profit, and start-up sectors.

Otti is a certified leadership coach, an associate of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI), and co-founder of the Global Society for Good Leadership and United Leaders Europe. He is an international keynote speaker and was named a Top 20 Global Thought Leader on Agile. Otti has contributed to several management books and is the author of an upcoming volume on leadership and organisational transformation.

In 2021, he founded the “Good Organisations” research laboratory with the University of St. Gallen, an ambitious, transdisciplinary project of “engaged scholarship” at doctoral level to advance new standards and best practices for ethical and effective leadership in business and society.

Professor Susan Long is PhD Course Co-Lead and PhD Supervisor at NIODA. She was formerly Professor of Creative and Sustainable Organisation at RMIT University in Melbourne. Currently, she supervises research students and conducts organisational research. Susan also teaches and supervises doctoral candidates at different universities including a Professional Doctorate conducted at the Melbourne Institute of Creative Arts Therapy and supported through the National Institute of Organisation Dynamics Australia (NIODA), teaches in the INSEAD Master of Coaching and Consulting program in Singapore and also works as part of the MSc Leading at the Edge program conducted by the Grubb Institute in Australia.

As an organisational consultant in private practice Susan works with organisational change, executive coaching, board development, role analysis, team development and management training. She originally trained as a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. She is a member of Comcare’s advisory board for the Center of Excellence for Research into Mental Health at Work and a former member of the Board of the Judicial College of Victoria. She was the founding President of Group Relations Australia and a past president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations. Her participative research has attracted grants through the Australian research Council and industry. She has published ten books and many journal articles.