Shawn Houlihan
Shawn Houlihan is a senior leader in the practice of linking governance to conflict management and state building, particularly in fragile states in Africa. Leadership development, dialogue and networking are often central to the programs designed and led by Shawn. He advocates that influencing and developing leaders is disproportionately important in fragile states where, by definition, key governance institutions are weak and challenges overwhelmingly complex, so the right leadership interventions represent massive opportunities for addressing root causes of conflict and state fragility. He has worked and lived in East Africa extensively for 30 years. In addition to the past 20 years representing the Forum of Federations, Shawn has worked for other aid agencies, consulting firms, UN agencies, and NGOs, in Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Yemen, Myanmar, and Iraq, among other countries.
Mr Houlihan has been a Research Associate in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University, a Teaching Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a Fellow of Roger Fisher’s Conflict Management Group and Associate at Universalia Management Group. In 2012 he was named a member of the Leadership Council at McGill University’s Institute for Studies in International Development, has been an associate of the Centre for Creative Leadership, and was a member of the Board of Directors, later Advisor to Board, of the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (CICR) over 2018-2021. Shawn holds master’s degrees in economics (Dalhousie) and public administration (Harvard).