Profile

Elisabeth Cassels-BrownElisabeth Cassels-Brown, M.A., freelance communication skills trainer since 1989; Instructor, Hope College Summer in Vienna Program, since 1992; Adjunct Professor of Cross-Cultural Management, Webster University Vienna, since 2002; Lecturer in Intercultural Management, IMC – Fachhochschule Krems, 2002 – 2005; Associate, Ashridge Business School (U.K.) since 2006; Adjunct Professor of Cross-Cultural Management, WEMBA program, a cooperation of Webster University Vienna and Comenius University (Bratislava), since 2008.
Born in the U.S.A., Elisabeth Cassels-Brown is a freelance trainer and a university instructor based in Vienna since 1988. She started her training career as a Business English instructor and moved into the field of intercultural communication and management upon completing her Masters degree in International Business. She designs and holds seminars and workshops in intercultural communication and management skills and supports managers in developing general cross-cultural competence. She has over 18 years of teaching and training experience, which include the entire training cycle—analysis of needs, program and course design, delivering of training measures, assessment of results achieved, and, where needed, planning of further measures.

Specialist Areas include:

  • Research and analysis of skills needed to work effectively in inter- or multicultural situations
  • Design of activities to illustrate and develop cross-cultural skills
  • Coaching of cultural self-awareness (also through use of the Cultural Perspectives Questionnaire and the International Profiler) and the development of intercultural skills
  • Realization of intercultural synergies within teams and organizations
  • Preparation of managers for international projects and assignments

Key projects:

  • Design and facilitation, for and with Ashridge Business School, of a three-module series of workshops in communication skills for a client in Cairo
  • Design and facilitation of an intercultural skills / corporate culture module in the European System of Central Banks (ESCB)’s workshop “Introduction to the Functioning of the ESCB”
  • Design and implementation of a new needs-, goal- and results-oriented English language training program for Austria’s central bank as well as similar projects for other Austrian companies
  • Design and facilitation of intercultural skills modules for the Österreichisches Controller-Institut; presentation at the 2005 Österreichische Controller-Tage; article on intercultural competence for Controller-News
  • Development, in cooperation with team consult wien, of a multimedia intercultural module for the Austrian Ministry of Education’s “neues lernen wirtschaft” blended-learning project as well as of ancillary material used to make intercultural management the key thread running through this one-year program
  • Design and realization of courses for M.B.A. or equivalent programs

Elisabeth Cassels-Brown earned her B.A. with honors in East Asian Studies / Japanese Language and Literature from Wesleyan University (U.S.A.) and her M.A. in International Business from Webster University Vienna, where she wrote her master’s thesis on the topic of creating cross-cultural synergy in international business ventures. She places great value on maintaining and building her professional skills and regularly attends workshops and seminars—mainly in the areas of dialogue (David Bohm method), leveraging differences in teams and organizations, and building cross-cultural competencies. She is a licensed user of the Cultural Perspectives Questionnaire (CPQ), the International Profiler (TIP), and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI - Steps I and II). She holds workshops in both English and German.

Before moving to Austria she worked in Marketing at Harvard University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Born in the U.S.A. to a German mother and British father, she also has many years of experience living in foreign countries including France, Japan, and, most recently, Austria. She is completely fluent in German and has a rusty knowledge of French and Japanese.