Art of Hosting Dilijan

Mary Alice is a narrative practitioner and story activist who helps people, communities, and organizations see how the stories we tell shape reality — and how narrative can guide collective intelligence toward the questions that matter most and support systemic change.
Born in the United States, she has been traveling the world since the age of 17, listening deeply to the stories of people and places.
Over the past 30 years, Mary Alice has become an internationally recognized host of participatory processes. She works with teams and organizations to help their stories come alive — and become a foundation for choices, action, and futures with more life in them.
She is a long-time steward of the Art of Hosting community, teaches participatory leadership practices around the world, is a steward of the Flow Game, and a co-creator of the Collective Story Harvest methodology.
At the heart of her work is creating spaces where people can notice the stories that guide them toward a more whole, sustainable, and humane future — and begin to live and act from them.

Melinda believes in the power of communities and loves supporting their growth so they can contribute to a more sustainable and life-giving future.
Working across different fields, she has repeatedly returned to the question of sustainability — personal, collective, and even “cosmological,” in the sense of humanity’s deeper relationship with the living world.
She is a co-founder of Impact Hub Budapest, a community-driven coworking space that is part of the global Impact Hub network.
Melinda is especially drawn to conversations where people truly meet one another, begin to recognize their own agency, and take steps toward a more regenerative world.
For more than 13 years she has been designing and facilitating such dialogues and processes using participatory approaches — including Art of Hosting and Theory U — working with organizations such as Greenpeace, the World Health Organization, the European Union, and numerous municipalities exploring participatory governance and democratic innovation.

Narayan grew up in Brazil but has long lived between cultures and continents. With mixed cultural roots and years of experience across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, he often describes himself as a global citizen.
He enjoys supporting people and organizations in discovering their potential and creating positive change.
Narayan holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. It was also in Sweden that he first encountered the Art of Hosting practice in 2013 — an experience that became a turning point in his work.
Since then he has dedicated himself to this practice, hosting collaborative processes for organizations and teams in many different countries and contexts.
He lived in Vietnam where he co-founded the alternative business school Knowmads Hanoi, and in 2018 moved to Shanghai where he became a partner in the sustainability consultancy Constellations.
In China he mainly works with European multinational companies with ambitious sustainability goals, China–EU intergovernmental partnerships, and public institutions.

Alyona describes herself as a serial social entrepreneur and is most inspired by creating things that have never existed before.
Among the initiatives she helped launch are Russia’s first nationwide battery collection and recycling program, the country’s first program on “purposeful marketing” within Effie Awards, and the first Russian-language course on systems thinking for sustainability at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka).
She has also helped adapt En-ROADS climate games for the local audience — and now helps bring the first Russian-language Art of Hosting training to life.
Alyona first encountered participatory leadership and hosting practices while studying in Sweden in 2018. Since then she has often caught herself sitting in rooms full of brilliant people silently listening to one or two speakers on stage — and thinking about how many opportunities for shared learning and exchange are being missed.

Anastasia is a sustainability educator, Forbes environmental columnist, and practitioner working at the intersection of systems thinking, education, and participatory practice.
She holds two master’s degrees: Cultural Management (University of Manchester / Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences) and Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden).
Anastasia designs and facilitates sustainability programs using participatory methodologies for universities, companies, and cross-sector networks.
Previously she was the co-founder and program director of the international environmental documentary film festival ECOCUP, and co-author and facilitator of the course New Ecology: Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences.
She currently lives in Istanbul, teaches yoga, and experiments with amateur stand-up comedy — exploring humor as a way to host difficult conversations.
Most of her time, however, is spent running after her four-year-old son, who may well be the most demanding and honest teacher of systemic practice.