Samir Selmanovic
Selmanovic PhD, PCC (born 1965 in Zagreb, Croatia) is an Executive Life Coach from New York City who helps high achievers master the alchemy of creativity, compassion, and courage in the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds, adding meaning to their success. He is the founder and the CEO of Wisdom Workroom. He has been helping his clients be present (mindfulness training), tell a bigger story (narrative coaching), and befriend the unknown (poetry and spirituality). He also works with perennial wisdom principles.
Samir believes that the solution to the widespread problem of corporate employees’ half-heartedness is leaders’ engagement with life itself. He complements executive coaching with wisdom coaching. Existence is sacred; nothing is ordinary; work is intimacy.
As a young alternative theater leader in Europe, an engineer and pastor in the United States, and finally as an executive life coach in New York City, Samir has helped develop more than 100 leaders, from ambitious entrepreneurs to sagacious CEOs. He takes his clients through a highly personalized and co-creative relationship.
Samir grew up with a Muslim father, a Christian mother, and an atheist school system—with capitalism to the West and communism to the East—he learned at an early age to elicit and escalate the best in others which has deeply informed his work. Samir’s passion for ideas and problem-solving propelled him through a B.Sc. in Engineering, an M.A. in Psychology, a Master of Divinity, and a Ph.D. in Human Development. Samir is also a graduate of Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching Program and is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC).
As a “secular pastor for business leaders” Samir is focusing on the humanization of business. He serves his clients with experience and insight gleaned from a long list of individuals and organizations with whom he has worked, including Harvard, Princeton, Glasgow-Caledonian, Freddie Mac, the Tropical Health Alliance Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, World Vision, Get Storied, Agile Boston, and the Florida Hospital.
In 1990s, Samir has been a Christian minister who is known particularly for his work in interfaith dialogue. He is the founder of "Faith House Manhattan", an interfaith community of Christians, Muslims, Jews and humanists/atheists. He also co-leads a Christian community named "Citylights", and has serves on the Interfaith Relations Commission of the United States National Council of Churches.
When the pastor of Church of the Advent Hope in New York City, he was honored by the group Muslims Against Terrorism for his assistance following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which included holding a Christian-Muslim discussion at the peak of tensions.[1] He has been praised by many other religious leaders such as Karen Armstrong, Parker Palmer, and Brian McLaren.
Biography
Selmanovic grew up in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia). While his father was Muslim and mother Christian, he was essentially brought up an atheist. He completed compulsory service in the army, becoming a progressive Christian at age 18. He moved to the United States in 1990, where he completed several graduate degrees. He is a progressive Seventh-day Adventist,[2] and believes no organized religion is perfect, and seeks to affirm other faiths, including humanism. From 2005 to today, Samir has focused on consulting and coaching work in corporate and entrepreneurial context, and has founded Wisdom Workroom. He lives in NYC and works as an Executive Life Coach.
Publications
- Current: RESOURCE blog
- Contributor, Emergent Manifesto of Hope
- 2009, It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian; book website; publisher's page. The book has been praised by many religious leaders including Brian McLaren,[3] Karen Armstrong, Tony Campolo,[4] and others.
References
- ↑ "New York Adventists Cooperate With Muslims to Promote Peace" by Robert Darken. Adventist Today 10:6 (November 2002)
- ↑ http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/book_reviews/2009/09/24/learning_love_well_and_need_other
- ↑ http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/a-couple-of-new-books-by-friends.html, and elsewhere
- ↑ Cited in http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/2009/01/350-samir-selmanovic-and-the-story-of-seeing-god-in-the-other.html
External links
- Wisdom Workroom official website
- Faith House Manhattan official website