Victor Kazanjian

Victor is a mentor, coach and consultant helping individuals and organizations to achieve their goals and actualize their aspirations through a holistic approach to leadership, life and learning. He teaches that integrated and effective leaders serve as midwives, enabling others to birth their creative potential.  Recently Victor served together with his wife Michelle Lepore as a Fellow in the Bartos Program for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict at the United World College - USA in New Mexico. He retired in 2022 as the Executive Director of URI (the United Religions Initiative), a global grassroots intercultural and interfaith peacebuilding network of more than 1,000 groups working in over 100 countries to build bridges of cooperation between people of all beliefs and cultures. Victor helped URI to implement a decentralized, network-based, light-framed, shared leadership organizational approach to addressing a wide array of humanitarian issues that gives people around the world the power to meet their challenges and build cohesive, connected, peaceful and just communities. Prior to joining URI, Victor served for two decades as Dean of Intercultural Education, Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life and Co-Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Wellesley College. He also served as a visiting faculty member at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research in Varanasi, India. Victor is an author and recognized thought leader and trainer in areas of intergroup dialogue, conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, community empowerment, peacebuilding, spiritual practice and consciousness. He is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church with a daily practice of Buddhist meditation, yoga, qigong and kirtan. He holds a Masters of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School and an A.B. in psychology from Harvard University.