We spark evolutionary potential.
They've brilliantly taken the 16 Features of Healthy Living Systems I used for years in teaching businesses to become more like living systems, streamlining them into 12 skills anyone can learn.
~ Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD
Where do the 12 Natural Skills Come From?
The work of world-renowned evolution biologist, futurist, and sustainability and living systems design consultant Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD, provides the foundation for The 12 Natural Skills. Dr. Sahtouris discovered the evolutionary maturation cycle, and her work with the 16 Features of Healthy Living Systems reveals how humanity can grow up and learn to thrive.
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Several years ago, our founder Valerie Vandermeer met Dr. Sahtouris, and began to learn about this set of features that all species must master to survive.
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My conversations with Elisabet fascinated me. They sparked connections with ideas I had developed working with social enterprise and the concept of business doing good. Eventually I designed a framework for unleashing evolutionary potential — The 12 Natural Skills — that has become my passion and the foundation for most of my work.
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I'm not a scientist, so I was able to listen to the story of humanity and understand the evolutionary phase we are at right now from a deeply personal and practical perspective. It seemed like suddenly life was an open-book test and I had the answers handed to me! I wanted everyone to have this information in a simple way that could make sense to anyone.
Meet The Team
Valerie Vandermeer
Founder & CEvO
Valerie is a teacher, writer, coach and whisperer of human potential. She developed The 12 Natural Skills used in our training programs based on the Healthy Living Systems work of world renown evolution biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, Phd.
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Valerie founded our partner organization 4evlutn and is also developing Foreworlds, a storyworld and gaming concept to teach The 12 Natural Skills.
Valerie launched and was Executive Director of a 501(c)3, managed a $1.5 Million annual giving program for a major University, and has consulted to some of the planet's most influential changemakers.
With decades of business experience, balanced by equal immersion in our human capacity to grow and flourish, Valerie brings a unique perspective on how to thrive.
Laura Langone
CFO & Chief Strategy Officer
CFO and Chief Strategy Officer for The Center for Corporate Evolution, Laura is a strategic futurist skilled in business and risk management for innovative corporations at the edge of social disruption and change. She’s held leadership positions at Rivian, AirBnb, PayPal, Juniper, Genetech, and Oracle.
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Laura is immediate past President and serves on the Board of Directors of the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS). In 2015, she chaired the RIMS Enterprise Risk Management Committee.
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Laura’s decades long immersion in understanding and managing to future opportunities, from foundation to IPO, makes her uniquely suited to assist businesses to understand their potential and invoke their capacity to become evolutionary leaders in global business.
Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD
Advisor
Dr. Sahtouris is an advisor to The Center for Corporate Evolution, Fellow of the World Business Academy, advisor to EthicalMarkets.com, and affiliated with the Bainbridge Graduate Institute MBA program for sustainable business, and is currently Professor in Residence at Chaminade University School of Business.
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She appears in numerous films and is author of EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution, A Walk Through Time: from Stardust to Us, Biology Revisioned (with Willis Harman), Gaia’s Dance and the new ebook, VISTA . She is a Board Member and Advisor to 4evlutn and The Center for Corporate Evolution.
Val has a great creative vision balanced with a whip smart business brain. Her coaching and consulting is well thought out, executed in a polished and fun way, and has a deep heart that is critical for humanity's ability to thrive and survive.
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- Alison Norrington, PhD, Founder & Creative Director at storycentral Ltd.
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She has a remarkable and rare ability to support others as well as organizations in tapping into their deepest creative space within and drawing out just what is needed the most.
- Diane Williams, President, The Source of Synergy Foundation
Smart, competent, creative, multi-talented, on purpose, easy to collaborate with and enlightened. You will be very happy working with Val.
- David Gershon, CEO, Empowerment Institute for Reinventing the Planet
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Laura is wonderful and very talented.
- Ray Morra, Managing Director, Aon
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The knowledge, energy and passion that Laura brought into her role and into the group was fantastic.
- Catherine Portman, VP, Treasurer, Palo Alto Networks
Laura provided great guidance to how we evaluate, discuss and incorporate risk in our strategic planning work. I appreciated her thorough approach, comprehensive delivery and solutions oriented discussion - really a great partner.
- Tim Kelly, CFO, Praxis Precision Medicines, Inc.