Barbara F. Schaetti, Ph.D.
Principal Consultant
Barbara F. Schaetti, Ph.D. is Principal Consultant of Transition Dynamics, an independent consultancy serving the international expatriate and repatriate community. She has been active in the field of intercultural and international training and consulting since 1985, with experience in both the private and public sectors. Barbara is also a member of the faculty of the Intercultural Communication Institute and is a founding partner of Personal Leadership Seminars (PLSeminars). She is qualified as a facilitator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
Barbara Schaetti’s core philosophy is rooted in the transformative potential inherent in expatriate and repatriate experiences. Precisely because they are fraught with ambiguity, frequently confusing intercultural encounters, and often significant isolation from known support systems, these experiences present us with unparalleled opportunities to become more fully present in our lives and to “wake up” to our authentic selves.
Barbara shares with her clients, be they individuals, groups, or organizations, her commitment for each of us “waking up” to the possibility of our lives. She works extensively with corporate and diplomatic families worldwide, with relocation vendors and service providers, and with expatriate and repatriate communities around the world. Her services take many forms, including coaching expatriates and repatriates, mentoring graduate students and professional interculturalists, facilitating and training multicultural work teams, speaking and presenting at international conferences, and systems consulting with international schools and other learning communities. She is a member of the International Coach Federation, the professional association for coaches worldwide.
Barbara Schaetti provides distinctive expertise in the particular dynamics of expatriate families who move to a new host country every 2 or 3 years, influenced in large part through her own experience. Her father, with her mother’s active support, worked for a multinational oil company; Barbara grew up in ten countries on five continents, and moved internationally twelve times by the age of twenty-two. After attending host-country schools in the French and British systems, she completed her secondary education in international schools. Barbara has dual-nationality (American and Swiss), and speaks and reads French in addition to English. She holds a Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication with a focus on cultural identity development, an M.A. in Intercultural Conflict Resolution, and a B.A. in International Political Science.
Barbara Schaetti regularly presents at international conferences. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Families in Global Transition Conference, serving as Secretary and a member of the Executive, and was Program Chair for the 2000, 2001, and 2002 conferences. Throughout her intercultural career, Barbara has been actively involved in SIETAR International (International Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research), Global Nomads International (GNI), The European Council of International Schools (ECIS), and the Women on The Move/Global Living conferences. She is a contributing author to several books and professional journals and has been interviewed for such publications as The Washington Post, HR (Human Resource) World Magazine, and The Guardian (London).
Barbara Schaetti’s Core Philosophy
Representative Clients and Projects
Transition Dynamics 