MARY FARMER, MBA
Mary has long experience as an academic, consultant, executive, researcher, speaker and thought leader in global business. 
Her passion is around inclusion, gender balance, leadership, communication, people and talent development. Former Global Director of Diversity and Inclusion for Philips CHRM in Amsterdam, she is on the Advisory Board of the Women's International Networking conference (WIN), Europe's largest annual event for professional women, is a former President of the European Professional Women’s network and long-serving past member of the Netherlands-Canada Chamber of Commerce. She is a longtime member of the European Institute for Managing Diversity and Expert Panel member for the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks.
She began her studies in Journalism and Communication and went on to study Cultural Anthropology and Traditional Law and Classical Thai. Mary holds an MBA in International Management from Leiden University and her doctoral research (ABT) at University of Amsterdam focused on the Systemic Impact of Implicit Bias on Organizations. She is professor in Organizational Behaviour, Transcultural /International/Knowledge/Change Management, Gender and Diversity in Organizations and International HRM. She frequently guest lectures at Business Schools in Europe and North America, developing and anchoring Copenhagen Business School's original Leading Women program and teaching online for many global institutions, including the University of British Columbia’s Certificate in Intercultural Studies.
Recently she served on the Executive Committee of one of the world's premier hospitality management universities, Glion Institute of Higher Education in Switzerland and London, and as Director of Online Programs ran a global MBA program for over 500 students. She has many years of experience in online training and teaching, including curriculum design. Mary's track record in innovative vision for education, particularly in the areas of blended learning, online education, organizational development and flipped classroom is extensive, and she has worked intensively for 15 years with many Learning Management Systems. Adapting these LMS to make them mobile- and tablet-friendly has been a recent initiative.
Holding dual Canadian and Dutch nationality she has lived and worked globally for most of her career and speaks English, Dutch, Thai, Lao, Bahasa Indonesia, Malay and a smattering of French, Mandarin, Arabic, German and Spanish.