Dianne Hofner Saphiere   8425 Cherokee Lane Leawood, KS 66206 U.S.A. tel (913) 901-0243 fax (913) 901-0244 e-mail: Dianne@nipporica.com

Work Experience

9/89 - Present NIPPORICA ASSOCIATES, Leawood, Kansas, USA, Director/Intercultural Consultant

• Own and manage all business activities including business plans, financial analysis and accounting, service marketing, project tracking, product development and sales, program design, material development, staff development including training of consultants and trainers, and research.
• Consult with clients on the intercultural effectiveness of corporate human resource development programs, performance appraisal systems, training and development plans, and business team meetings.
• Design and facilitate processes and programs for organizational mergers and cross-functional and global teambuilding, focusing on effective communication and decision making across difference.
• Design and deliver cross-cultural and global business training programs and train trainers in their delivery.

7/90 - Present SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION, Oregon, Faculty Member

• Design, develop and deliver training of trainers and consultants, specializing in intercultural and global organization development, team effectiveness, and bridging cultures.

9/84 - 9/89 THE CLARKE CONSULTING GROUP (IRI), Tokyo Japan and California USA, Marketing Manager/Intercultural Consultant

• Designed, marketed and delivered intercultural human resource development and organization development projects.
• Brought in ten major new clients, building business by $1.5 million annually and increasing staff by 19 people.
• Recruited and trained professional staff. Responsible for the on-going professional development of fifteen trainers and consultants.
• Conducted research, consulting, training and teambuilding bilingually.
• Authored numerous studies, proposals, reports, and public relations and marketing materials.

8/82 - 9/84 HEUBLEIN JAPAN K.K., Tokyo Japan, Management Assistant

• Planned and implemented local sales and marketing strategy for alcoholic beverages. Created a new Marketing Department and increased sales of one brand from 500 cases to 17,000 annually (currently over 120,000).
• Participated in successful joint venture negotiations with Mitsubishi Trading.
• Acted as liaison between U.S. home office and local Japanese staff.

8/81 - 7/82 JAPANESE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, Shizuoka Japan, Mombusho English Fellow

• Designed and conducted in-service training for high school English teachers as part of a Fulbright Commission program.
• Published a popular newsletter for English Teaching Consultants throughout Japan.

Education & Professional Development

2000 MAGICNEERING INSTITUTE Kansas City, KS USA

• Workshop entitled "Infinite Imagination!" with Mark Eberra, designed to unleash an unlimited ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative, resourceful power of the mind.

1999 OPEN SPACE DIALOGUE: STEWARDSHIP Pennsylvania USA

• Three-day intensive with Robert Wright, Dr. Sheila Ramsey, and Dr. Jennifer Smith, ND, DHANP.

1998-1999 DIALOGUE FACILITATORS' WORKSHOP Colorado USA

• Conducted by Ann Jaramillo and Associates.

1998 PROCESS-ORIENTED LEADERSHIP TRAINING: CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND GROUP FACILITATION Santa Fe, New Mexico

• Nine-day intensive with Dr. Max Schupbach and Dr. Jytte Vikkelsoe.

1991 UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco, California USA

• Master of Science in Human Resource Development and Organization Development. Graduate Research Award, College of Professional Studies.

1990 - present SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION, Portland, Oregon USA

• Faculty member and annual workshop attendance. (Managing Multicultural Organizations, Developing an Integrated Globalization Strategy, Advanced Workshop in Intercultural Conflict Resolution, Creating Intercultural Consciousness).

1985 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Washington, D.C.

• Certified as an Advanced Intercultural Trainer by SIETAR International (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research).

1982 STANFORD UNIVERSITY Stanford, California USA

• Graduate level internship at the Stanford Institute for Intercultural Communication.

1981 UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC Stockton, California USA

• Bachelor's degree in International Studies, East Asia area emphasis. Outstanding Freshman and Senior awards. Truman Scholarship Fellow. GPA 3.9. Included study at the University of Salamanca, Spain, and Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka, Japan.

Publications and Awards

Diversophy: Japan Deck, George Simons International, 2000.

"Response to Difference Scale," and "The Ma Game," both in Global Competence: 50 Training Activities for Succeeding in International Business, HRD Press, October 2000.

"Cultural Detective: Sleuthing the Clues for Cultural Differences," in The 2001 Training and Performance Sourcebook, McGraw-Hill, Inc., September 2000.

Beyond the Bamboo Curtain: Working Effectively with Asians, a training manual available for licensing, 1996, second edition 1999.

Ecotonos: A Multicultural Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Simulation, Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME, 1993, second edition 1997. Also Ecotonos Facilitators' Certification Course.

Cultural Pinwheels: A Style Assessment and Discussion Tool, November, 1996.

"Productive Behaviors of Global Business Teams"; International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 4, Fall 1996.

Pangea: The Shift to Global Thinking; training manual written with Brad Hams, August, 1996.

"Language Skews Performance Appraisals"; Cultural Diversity at Work, July, 1996.

"Multicultural Problem Solving"; in the Intercultural Sourcebook, vol. 1, Sandra Fowler, ed. Intercultural Press, 1995.

STADIApproach to Intercultural Learning, Personal Intercultural Portfolio for Effectiveness, and Cultural Detective training techniques, 1995.

RedundancÌa: A Second Language Simulation, September 1994.

Beyond Bowing: Effective Relationships with the Japanese, Trainers" Manual and Participants" Manual, July, 1994.

"Avoid Culture Conflict in Japanese Ventures", Asian Wall Street Journal, with Mathew Gollub, February 8, 1993.

Nipporica Notes, a quarterly newsletter published by Nipporica Associates, since 1990.

"The Binding of Culture: Nonverbal Dimensions of Credibility in Structured Learning Situations"; in Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication, with Sheila Ramsey and Yoichi Shimakawa, C.J. Hoegrefe Press, 1988.

Intercultural Award for Achievement, International Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, (SIETAR International) 1994.

World Who's Who of Women, 1990-98.

International Who's Who of Professional and Business Women, 1992-98.

International Woman of the Year, 1992-98.

Graduate Research Award, University of San Francisco, 1992.

Alumni Fellow, University of the Pacific School of International Studies, 1991.

Rohm and Haas Japan Outstanding Service Award, 1988.

Other Professional Activities/Qualifications

Clients served include: ABB, Acadia Polymers, Adaptec, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, American President Lines, Apple Computer, Applied Materials, Armco, AT&T, The Bavarian Ministry of Economics, Booz-Allen and Hamilton, Borg-Warner, Cable and Wireless, Chemical Bank, CitiBank, ConAgra, Continental Airlines, DaiNippon Ink and Chemicals, Digital Semiconductor, DuPont, Federal Express, Fujitsu America, Fuji Xerox, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intercultural Communication Institute, Intel, Japan Acrylic Chemical Industries, Japan Grayline, Japan Management Association, JTB, Kawasaki Steel, Kodak, Levi Strauss, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui Advanced Media, Moody's, Motorola, Nikon Precision Instruments, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Nova Gas, The Principal Financial Group, Procter and Gamble, Radio Nederland, The Rohm and Haas Company, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Samsung, School for International Training, Seattle's Best Coffee, Southwest Regional Labs, Taisho Marine and Fire Insurance, Tandem Computers, Texas Instruments, 3M, Tokyo Organic Chemical Industries, Unum Life Insurance.

Read, speak and write Japanese. Grew up speaking Spanish. Extensive living experience in Mexico, Spain and Japan. Extensive travel in Latin America, Asia and Europe. Has worked with people from over 48 nations.

Active in ASTD (American Society for Training and Development); SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Training, Education and Research) since 1980: workshop presenter at most annual conferences, Nominations and Elections Committee 1986 and 2001; Founder of the Japan chapter of SIETAR, 1985; North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA).

Presenter at various professional conferences including: Osaka International Forum, Small Business Administration (SBA), University of California Berkeley, Employee Relocation Council (ERC), University of Colorado Boulder, Pacific Area Personnel Association (PAPA), World Trade Center, National Association of Simulation and Gaming (NASAGA), etc.

Enjoy travelling, skiing, hiking, painting, drawing, swimming, sewing and reading. Active volunteer as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for children, as well as in church and community outreach activities.

Proficient with the Macintosh computer, including database, accounting, graphics, drawing, page layout, and web page creation in Japanese, Spanish and English. Moderate an online group of professional interculturalists since 1999. Conducted and guest-taught several online courses.

Certified Level One Turaya Touch meditation/healing practitioner.

Consulting Expertise

• Senior Executives: consultation on personal skills and styles, global/regional strategic planning, and balance of organization development/human resource development policies with Canadian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican and U.S. executives. Work has included private discussions as well as interviews with key staff, participation in top management meetings and task forces, since 1986.
• Team Effectiveness: design and facilitation of international management meetings, ongoing activities and tools for facilitator and independent use, since 1987. Work with global, regional, national and local business teams as well as facility, functional and cross-functional management teams (U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, Italy, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain).
• Human Resource Development, Training and Development, and Sales Channel Development Planning: conducting needs assessments and writing plans for client corporations.
• Adaptation of Training for International Use: revising corporate training programs, including adaptation of materials, techniques, and training styles, since 1985.

Research Expertise

• Corporate Culture and Joint Venture Compatibility Analysis: anthropological studies of corporations and their subsidiaries and affiliates, since 1986. Purpose is to characterize the corporation¹s norms and values, compare one corporate culture with another, and predict where the cultures might mesh smoothly and where a joint venture might result in friction.
• Productivity Assessment: analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of international business and intercultural and cross-functional team activities and processes, since 1984. Techniques include extensive interviews, observation, document analysis and benchmarking. Purpose is to locate areas of strength in the organization as well as areas for improvement. Outcomes of the research have included organizational restructuring, reassignment of personnel, job redesign, training and development programs, revised communications and decision-making procedures, alternative recruiting and selection practices, regular business team meetings and teleconferences, revision of business objectives, strategies and timelines, and self-directed team and personal skill development.

Training Expertise

• Needs assessment: personal and telephone interviews, process observation, and review of correspondence to assess needs for training and orientation since 1979. 70% of these assessments have been conducted in English, with about 30% in Japanese.
• Program design: designing intercultural training programs since 1979. Includes three years of work in-house with clients in Japan. Designing team communication workshops since 1987, and decision-making across difference workshops since 1990.
• Materials creation: writing and design of training materials since 1979. Materials include well over two hundred critical incidents and over seventy role plays with debriefing instructions. Topics of other materials include: thinking processes and reasoning styles; creativity and innovation; risk taking and entrepreneurship; setting priorities; skimming and scanning; cross-cultural persuasion; oral presentation; multicultural meeting management and participation; establishing credibility across cultures; working as an American woman in Japan; global thinking in business (vs. localization and regionalization); multicultural team skills; multicultural problem solving.
• Delivery: training for over 2000 Japanese and 1800 American business people, 250 business people of other nationalities, and fifty or so families. Training style is client-centered, based upon a thorough needs assessment, and actively involves the participants in discussions, exercises and role plays.
• Evaluation: design and delivery of participant questionnaires (immediately after training and at regular intervals afterwards), oral interviews with participants, their supervisors, subordinates and colleagues, pre- and post-tests, final assessment activities, real-time and on-going observation, and comparative performance appraisal scores.
• Follow-up: periodic calls and visits, as well as fax, E-mail and voice mail support, to provide additional guidance, recommend further activities, readings or resources, and provide necessary counselling.
• Training of trainers: design and delivery of courses for trainers since 1984. Content includes: needs assessment (designing a preliminary questionnaire, conducting the interview itself, summarizing the data), program design (principles of adult learning, stages of cross-cultural adaptation, levels of depth/threat with various training techniques, ensuring a feeling of progression, designing a new activity), delivery (professional presence, handling questions, guiding discussion, boarding skills, summarizing and generalizing, debriefing role plays and case studies, using simulations and personal profiles, delivering feedback) and evaluation/program redesign.

Managerial Expertise

• Project Management: overall coordination of projects in the areas of marketing, training, consulting, organizational redesign, teambuilding, sales and distribution. Responsible for recruiting and training of professional staff, and design and setup (scheduling, curriculum design, trainer assignment, materials preparation, delivery, evaluation/quality assessment) of training programs since 1988.
• Client Interface: Representing customer and client needs, supervising scheduling and billing, initiating new projects and maintaining client team involvement since 1984.
• Product Development: positioning of consumer and intercultural products for maximum market penetration since1982. Design of new, client-tailored services since 1984. Development of intercultural tools for the mass market since 1990.
• Supervision: of professional staff including marketers, consultants and trainers, since 1982. Responsible for scheduling, team building, and performance management. Those supervised included full-time, part-time and special contract personnel.
• Recruiting: interviewing and assessing candidates for technical, managerial, consulting, training and project management positions.

  For a reference from one of Dianne's many satisfied clients, click here.