Zoe Fitzgerald
Associate Consultant
Zoe Fitzgerald is an Associate Consultant of The FutureWork Institute who has more than 10 years of experience working in the development of individuals, groups and organizations in the private, public and non-profit sectors. She specializes in designing and facilitating inclusive processes that enable diverse groups to think, learn and create together new approaches to their key challenges.
She has designed, managed, delivered and facilitated programs and initiatives related to diversity and inclusion, leadership development, employee engagement, change management and innovation in more than 30 countries across Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East. Zoe uses a strengths-based, appreciative, participatory, creative and inclusive approach in her work, leveraging her training and practice of many social technologies such as the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations, World Café, Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, Design Thinking, Scenario Planning, U-Process and Team Coaching.
As a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant at ABN AMRO Bank based in Holland and at Banco Real based in Brazil, Zoe:
• Supported the development of the D&I strategy across the Group globally;
• Designed and facilitated internal global D&I strategy meetings;
• Developed internal D&I awareness building and educational tools (such as a board game and internal communication campaign);
• Designed and facilitated diversity and inclusion awareness workshops;
• Acted as D&I employee resource group liaison;
• Oriented qualitative research project for diversity market segmentation;
• Designed virtual educational tools around diversity and human rights;
• Acted as the Brazilian liaison for international PhD research project on workplace inclusion.
As a former Director, alumni volunteer and external consultant, Zoe has designed and facilitated cross-cultural awareness workshops, intercultural learning programs and leadership development programs (face to face and virtually) for AIESEC, the global youth network impacting the world through leadership development experiences.
As a Senior HR Consultant at Santander Bank based in Brazil, Zoe designed and facilitated:
• A project to co-create an attraction, recruitment and development platform for Millennials which resulted in an award-winning virtual platform;
• An internal co-creation project to redesign the organizational learning purpose, principles and practices;
• A series of change management workshops in the new leadership development program following a merger;
• Dialogue-based employee engagement initiatives as part of a broader change management program;
• A research project for the future of corporate innovation through the creation of knowledge networks.
As a consultant with Creative Society, based in Spain, Zoe designed and facilitated:
• Creativity and empowerment workshops with a Middle Eastern government;
• Future trends co-creation workshops with a Spanish technology company and a British supermarket chain;
• Team-building with an international team from a Swiss-based global foundation;
• Design-thinking training workshops with a Spanish bank.
Zoe has facilitated Design Thinking workshops at the Instituto de Empresas Business School in Madrid, Spain, in their “Change in Action” module for the International MBA program. She was a guest presenter on Co-Creation at Sintese Azul’s Change Play Business event in Portugal and Theory U as a tool for collaborative approaches to social innovation at the Latin American Forum for Impact Investing.
Zoe is an Associate Consultant with several consulting groups acting internationally in the fields of social innovation and change (Reos Partners), leadership and organizational development (Future Considerations, Emzingo Group), team learning and team entrepreneurship (Tiimiakatemia from Finland) and organizational innovation and sustainability (CoCriar).
As an independent consultant since her return to Brazil at the end of 2013, Zoe designed, developed and facilitated:
• An internal co-creation project at a Brazilian educational institution to redesign a new career development program;
• An internal co-creation project at a Brazilian mining company using Design Thinking to innovate in Recruitment and Selection and Dismissal processes;
• A leadership development program for an NGO focused on youth development in India;
• A project to develop and implement a team learning model at a European truck manufacturer in Brazil.
Zoe, an Australian, is based in Brazil where she is a permanent resident. Zoe has a Bachelor of Arts in Asian and International Studies, majoring in culture and communication, from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. She has advanced certificates in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish languages, is a Certified Team Coach from Tiimiakatemia, Finland, has trained in a variety of organizational development and hosting methodologies, as well as knowledge-management at FGV University in São Paulo and Conflict Resolution and Management at the University of Amsterdam.