Gretchen Ki Steidle is the Founder & President of Circles for Conscious Change, LLC, a transformative education firm working with social entrepreneurs, non-profits, and corporations on the use of mindfulness as a design tool for social innovation. Gretchen is the founder of Global Grassroots, an international organization that for 18 years operated a mindfulness-based social venture incubator, launching the ideas of more than 900 women and girls across East Africa, benefiting 250,000 others. She has an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. She is author of Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation (MIT Press, 2017), and lectures and teaches on inner work and social change worldwide. A certified Integrative Breathworker, Gretchen has been delivering breath-based therapeutic practices, resilience training and trauma healing since 2002 to a range of individuals globally, including Rwanda genocide survivors, Haiti earthquake survivors and first-responders, Hurricane Katrina survivors, university activists, mental health professional and health care professionals. Her workshops have been offered at institutions including the Skoll World Forum, Omega Institute, Kripalu Institute, Wellbeing Project, AshokaU Exchange, and several universities. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. In 2010 she was honored as a CNN Hero volunteering in Haiti after the earthquake. In 2011 she was chosen one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine. In 2018 Gretchen was named one of Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers.