Lisa Hehnke

I know how I want my story to end. Physically, I'd like to become an ash painting. Psychologically, I want to be at peace with how I spent my time and the futures I've helped bring to life.

To me, the beauty of hospice and alternative death care lies in its ability to hold many different worlds at once. It's the kind of world I've spent more than a decade building, always moving beyond traditional boundaries: leading an economic think tank, researching and teaching computational social science at three universities, co-directing an international tech startup, running my own consulting and facilitation practice, building a cross-cultural data science community, steering a global open science MOOC, and helping organizations and public institutions navigate complex, cross-sector transformations. Alongside all that, I've guided people through deeply personal transitions as a death companion, systemic coach, and intercultural mentor.

Along the way, I earned a Master's degree in Politics and Public Administration from the University of Konstanz, completed executive education at Oxford Saïd, MIT Sloan, and Columbia Business School, and pursued advanced training in futures and systems thinking at Parsons and IDEO U. I also became a certified systemic coach, qualified mediator, and certified project manager.

None of that will make it onto my ash painting, though.

What might, metaphorically, is the integrative approach I've cultivated over the years: understanding the systems we're entangled in, sensing what new possibilities emerge as those systems decline, crafting strategies that adapt as conditions change, and co-creating with people rather than managing their resistance.

My story will likely end in ashes. The futures we build together don't have to.