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Peter Koestenbaum

Peter Koestenbaum, Ph.D., founder and Chairman of PiB and the Koestenbaum Institute, brings leadership philosophy to business people globally. Peter Koestenbaum is presently active in establishing the Leadership Diamond® globally through the Koestenbaum Institute, headquartered in Stockholm and Los Angeles. Koestenbaum's Leadership Diamond® is a complete program of leadership awareness.

The Leadership Diamond® focuses on the power of depth, which leads to emphasizing the power of free will, the ubiquitous presence of polarity and paradox, analyzing the structure of courage, and the critical importance of understanding systems and strategy. This leadership philosophy leverages the power of negative experiences for clues to breakthroughs. Koestenbaum talks about the development of the leadership mind as the key for achieving business results. And he spends much time on the tough issues of implementation.

Peter Koestenbaum’s education is in physics, music, and philosophy, having earned degrees from Stanford, Harvard, and Boston University (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., respectively). He also attended the University of California - Berkeley, in music and philosophy.

He taught for 34 years in the Philosophy Department of San Jose State University and received the Statewide Outstanding Professor Award. While a professor of philosophy, Peter Koestenbaum spent 25 years working with psychologists and psychiatrists, in seminars, lectures, and books, exploring the relationship between psychiatry and the healing potential of philosophy.

Peter Koestenbaum founded an accredited institute for teachers, nurses, physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists in California. The institute taught the uses of philosophy in education, psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Peter Koestenbaum decided to apply the insights he gained in philosophy and psychiatry to business: management, strategic thinking, marketing, but above all to leadership over 25 years ago. This journey has taken Peter to over thirty-six countries on five continents. Among the firms where he worked with intensity are IBM, Electronic Data Systems, Ford, Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis), Citibank, Volvo, Amoco, Xerox, American Medical International (now Tenet HealthSystem), Warner Cosmetics, Statoil (Norway), Sparbanken Gruppen (Sweden), etc. He is an active faculty member in the School for Managing and Leading Change.

He is author of several business books including, Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness (Spanish, Swedish, French), The Heart of Business (French) and Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World. Some of his philosophic books are The Vitality of Death, The New Image of the Person, Managing Anxiety, Choosing to Love and Is There an Answer to Death?

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