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About · The Luminous Faculty

The Luminous Faculty

The work of Luminous is held by a carefully chosen faculty of practitioners, wisdom guides and senior fellows.

Every Luminous practitioner meets a distinctive standard: senior leadership experience as a founder, CEO, C-suite leader or senior executive, together with professional coaching accreditation and deep experience in leadership development.

That is the rare overlap at the heart of the work. People who understand what it is to run an organisation, hold authority and make consequential decisions under pressure, and who have the training to work with the deeper patterns shaping how leaders grow, relate and change.

Alongside them, our wisdom guides and senior fellows keep Luminous in active inquiry at the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern leadership science.

Anthony Venus
01

Anthony Venus

Managing Partner and Council Member

Four-time founder and CEO with successful exits, and more than 30 years of leadership experience across ventures and senior executive roles in global public companies in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific.

ICF-accredited coach and graduate of the IMD Executive Coaching programme, with postgraduate studies in psychology and Buddhist philosophy. Anthony’s work joins the lived experience of building and leading companies with deep developmental work at the thresholds where leadership has to change.

Susan Goldsworthy PhD, OLY, Rev.
02

Susan Goldsworthy PhD, OLY, Rev.

Partner and Council Member

Affiliate Professor of Leadership, Communications and Organisational Change at IMD, where she is Co-Director and Lead of the IMD Executive Coaching Certificate. Olympic finalist, award-winning writer, executive coach and speaker, with more than 20 years in senior roles at large multinationals.

Susan holds a PhD in Organisational Change and an Executive Masters in Neuroscience of Leadership. She is also an ordained Interfaith Minister, and integrates leadership science, executive development, neuroscience, embodied practice and wisdom tradition in a way few practitioners can.

José-Luiz Moura
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José-Luiz Moura

Partner and Council Member

Former COO of Salesforce UK and Ireland, with more than three decades of corporate leadership across finance, operations and global technology organisations. Originally from Brazil and now based in London, José-Luiz holds an MBA from the University of São Paulo.

ICF-certified Integral Development Coach, leadership coach, thought partner and speaker. His executive experience in scale, operations and transformation sits alongside a coaching practice focused on authentic leadership, values and meaningful change.

Eugene Vyborov
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Eugene Vyborov

AI Partner and Council Member

Eugene’s expertise spans AI agent systems, product architecture and applied intelligence. He is Founder and CEO of Ability.ai and creator of Trinity, the open-source runtime behind its agent systems.

At Luminous, Eugene leads the architecture of Luminous Mind, our pattern intelligence for seeing recurring themes, tensions and shifts across leadership journeys. He also works with Luminous clients to explore AI applications, helping leaders understand where intelligent systems can create value, improve decision-making and reshape how their businesses operate.

Nikolai Ladanyi
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Nikolai Ladanyi

Senior Practitioner

Serial entrepreneur with three decades in business and a leading European scaling expert. After Barings Private Equity, Nikolai founded, scaled and sold companies and became the first German-speaking Scaling Up coach. He edited the German edition of Scaling Up, co-authored that of the Rockefeller Habits, co-wrote Hyper Org for Hyper Growth, and lectures in entrepreneurship at Steinbeis University.

Purpose guide and Internal Family Systems practitioner, trained in organisational constellations, integral development and breathwork, he helps leaders see the parts and patterns running them under pressure.

Palma Michel speaking
06

Palma Michel

Senior Practitioner

Palma is an external adviser to McKinsey and a former leader at Korn Ferry and Heidrick & Struggles, where she worked across CEO, board and private equity practices in Europe and Asia.

Trained as a lawyer, she has spent more than a decade coaching CEOs, founders and leadership teams through change and transformation. Author of The Authority Guide to Mindful Leadership, she integrates mindfulness, resilience and trauma-informed coaching to deepen self-awareness, navigate pressure and align success with purpose.

Ralph Ashton speaking at a lectern
07

Ralph Ashton

Senior Practitioner

Ralph is a former founder and CEO, strategy consultant and executive coach with three decades across corporate law, investment banking and social entrepreneurship. He has advised and coached leaders across finance, law, consumer goods, defence, mining, academia, NGOs and government, including work with the UN and World Bank.

He founded Next25, a non-profit think tank, held visiting positions at Columbia University and the Australian National University, and undertook postgraduate studies in Jungian psychology at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich.

Kate Van Akin speaking at The Emergence
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Kate Van Akin

Senior Practitioner

Kate spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company working with senior executives on transformation: the change narratives, the leadership resilience and the enterprise-wide approaches that determine whether change holds or quietly reverses. She has seen from the inside, across many organisations, what makes the difference.

Certified Integral Development Coach, ICF ACC, and JD from Harvard Law School, with training in integral coaching, somatic and systemic work. Kate works with leaders and teams across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, bridging corporate transformation and the deeper inner work that allows change to hold.

H.E. Khedrup Rinpoche
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H.E. Khedrup Rinpoche

Wisdom Guide

Born in Eastern Bhutan, the Fifth Khedrup Rinpoche, Ugyen Tenzin Thinley Lhendrup, is the recognised reincarnation of Kyabgon Monla Khedrup Jigme Kundrol, a distinguished Bhutanese scholar and practitioner and principal student of Jigme Lingpa.

Rinpoche began his monastic education at 13, pursued advanced Buddhist studies at Mindrolling College in India, graduated with an Acharya degree in 2015 and joined the teaching faculty there. He teaches on wisdom, courage and skilful compassion, grounding the work in the inner disciplines of attention, service and transformation.

Professor Virginia Cha speaking
10

Professor Virginia Cha

Senior Fellow

Professor of innovation and entrepreneurship with appointments across Singapore’s leading institutions, including Adjunct Professor at INSEAD and at NUS Business School. Virginia has a 38-year industry and academic career across multiple countries, and has founded or co-founded venture-funded technology companies in Singapore and China, with listings on NASDAQ and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

She holds a PhD from the National University of Singapore and is an active researcher, mentor and angel investor in Singapore’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Her work spans entrepreneurship, innovation, venture building and the long arc of contribution, helping leaders think beyond achievement towards reinvention, purpose and lasting impact.

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