Meet our Team

Shauna Ries, LCSW, MFT, MDR
Chief Executive Officer

Shauna brings an impassioned vision and constant optimism to her role as CEO of Mediators without Borders. She believes strongly in the principles and intentions of MwB as the team moves forward with its model for economic sustainability in the field of conflict resolution. Shauna brings over thirty years of combined work and experience in management and executive levels of corporations and in the front lines as a family clinician and certified mediator. This unique combination of skill sets enables Shauna to build bridges among diverse communities and engage in personal interactions with compassion, all the while keeping the mission and vision of Mediators without Borders as a litmus test for all company endeavors and partnerships.

Shauna is a graduate of the University of Denver where she earned a master degree in social work. She completed her studies at DU with an 18 month post graduate study in Marriage and Family Therapy at the Denver Family Institute. Shauna completed mediation trainings through CDR and through a partnership program between Arcadia University International Peace and Conflict Studies Program and IADR/MwB. She became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and worked in private practice and at Project PAVE and Union Pacific Railroad as a mediator and family clinician. In 1994, Shauna founded RMA, a stress management and conflict management company offering individual and corporate training. In 2003, Shauna brokered a partnership between Arcadia University and RMA to offer a first of its kind graduate certificate program in alternative dispute resolution.
Shauna's testimonials

Genna Murphy, M.A., M.A.
Chief Operations Officer

Genna brings a steady, unflappable energy to her work as Chief Operating Officer where she is responsible for managing operations across channels and support functions to ensure that the best in business performance is consistently delivered. She brings over twenty five years of entrepreneurship and counseling experience as a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice to her work at Mediators without Borders. Genna has long followed the path of peace making, beginning with her involvement in 1986 with the World Instant of Cooperation, a global event designed to focus energy and intention on peace in the world.

Genna has been a musician, singer, and song writer since childhood and brings this rich creativity to all of her work at Mediators without Borders. As the founding partner of IADR/MwB, she was instrumental in developing the courses and programs for the company and overseeing faculty and ongoing course revisions for the “first of its kind” online graduate certificate program in Mediation and ADR. Genna has a graduate degree in Urban Planning from the University of Colorado and heads the green building initiatives for the research centers and clinic.
Genna's Testimonials

Ambassador Joseph Ayalogu
Development Officer ~ Nigeria

Ambassador Ayalogu is currently Nigeria's ambassador to the United Nations as well as Nigeria’s ambassador to Switzerland, spending much of his time between Geneva and Nigeria. He brings a steady and highly experienced hand to the MwB expansion into his homeland of Nigeria. Ambassador Ayalogu has over 35 years experience in international diplomacy and negotiation and is the Executive Director of the Ken Nnamani Centre for Leadership and Development.

The Ambassador brings a high level of expertise in multilateral diplomacy and negotiation, financial management and oversight, peace building and conflict resolution, and policy planning, development, and implementation to his role as Development Officer for Nigeria. He plays a key leadership role in the assembling of a working group in Nigeria which is collaborating with Mediators without Borders to bring MwBconflict resolution clinics to the country.

Carey Hartman
MwB Intern

Carey Hartman is in her second year of law school at the City University of New York, a school dedicated to "law in the service of human need." She received her bachelors of arts in Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University. After college she first worked in a domestic violence shelter and women’s resource center on the Yankton Sioux Reservation and went on to become a special education counselor at a summer camp for at-risk youth. She has travelled extensively throughout the world, most memorably India, Southeast Asia, and South America. She is interested in Indigenous rights, Intellectual and Cultural Property, Education as a basic human right and finding solutions to the pervasiveness of violence in our society. She is also very interested in contemplative practice and alternative dispute resolution. In her spare time she is an avid writer and hopes one day to publish some of her work. She currently lives in Astoria, Queens, one of the most diverse places in the world where her favorite thing to do is try a new kind of food every week.

Why I chose to intern with Mediators without Borders

I had the immense good fortune of connecting with Mediators without Borders just as my school year was coming to an end and the daunting task of finding an internship approached. I could have clerked for a judge or worked in the Public defender's office, both of which are very important and worthwhile positions. But what I really wanted to do, what I was being drawn to more and more, was an exploration of alternative means of dispute resolution. Mediators without Borders not only shares many of my own personal values, but champions them ethically, effectively, and with an enormous amount of compassion. Mediators without Borders doesn’t want to “help” people, it wants to “empower” people, which is the key to sustainable peace.

MwB Team Values

We share a common passion for peacemaking in the world,

We recognize that the dissemination of knowledge and skills in Mediation and conflict resolution will advance the cause of mankind for peace and prosperity,

We are called with individual purpose for a collective well-being and to exert our best individual and collective professional capacities to promote the vision of MwB in all nations and continents,

We recognize that the eradication of poverty is an essential foundation for peace in the world and,

We pledge and commit ourselves to the following principles:

• Do No Harm
• Aspire to the Unity Principle
• Honor our Commitments
• Create and Deliver an Educational Model for the Purpose of Global Conflict Resolution
• Teach with Reverence and Intention