M.A. Schonewille | Manon
Certified Business Mediator (IMI, MfN, PBM) | Workplace and B2B | Negotiator | Trainer | Speaker | Author
Manon is a leading international trainer | academic | author | commercial mediator & negotiator.
I have been a business mediator for more than 20 years. When I started my career as a young dedicated company lawyer a client once told me: ‘Thanks but this legal approach doesn’t make sense, I will solve it in a commercial way.’ It was a key moment and questioning what is truly driving your client and how to serve them best vs. a purely legal mindset probably influenced my decision for a career switch to become a marketing manager at companies like Schering, Nestle and Guhl.
Being in charge of an international department I was often asked to negotiate (I did not know the term 'mediation' yet) between the international head office, subsidiaries, colleagues, clients or competitors. Another key moment was when somebody told me ‘There are people who make a living out of this, it’s called mediation.’ I was immediately motivated to follow several mediation and negotiation courses including the PON at Harvard law school in Boston.
Ever since, my business is about making, saving or ending deals, combined with my passion to teach others how to do that as well. Enabling clients to successfully close deals: faster and easier to implement.
I can support lawyers and executives through the life cycle of their deals and collaborations. Making a deal as a deal facilitator or negotiation coach and saving or carefully ending a deal, employment contract or partnership as a mediator.
I can also help you to become a mediator yourself or a better negotiator. As a trainer I'm specialised in training professionals in the advanced use of mediation and negotiation techniques.
Examples of my work can be found in my profile below.
Profile
Manon Schonewille is a fulltime professional in mediation, a certified business mediator, IMI certified mediator and IMI certified mediation advisor. She is co-founder of Mundi Mediatores and The ACADEMY of Legal Mediation and Negotiation. Manon mainly mediates employment cases and commercial issues where corporations, joint ventures, international teams or commercial collaborations in the business to business service sector are involved.
Before becoming a full-time ADR professional Manon worked in international marketing and business strategy in several countries for multinational organizations including Nestlé and Schering. Here the foundation was laid for her interest in international negotiation and conflict management. She graduated from the law faculty of Groningen University in the Netherlands and completed the Negotiation and Advanced Negotiation courses as part of the Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School (USA). At the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) in San Diego (USA), she gained practical mediation experience in the USA and she was also educated in The Netherlands, Austria and the UK.
Manon has carried out trainings and consulting throughout Europe, the MEDA region, Caribe and the USA. She consults governmental organizations, corporations and leading law firms in dispute prevention, conflict management, mediation advocacy and setting up ADR mechanisms and programs. Moreover she trains professionals all over the world in the advanced use of mediation, negotiation and influencing techniques, especially in intercultural environments, as well as in training other trainers.
Besides being a Board Memeber of IMI, The International Mediation Institute, and chairing IMI’s Task Force on Mediation Advocacy, Manon participated in Hamline University’s multi-year effort to critique contemporary negotiation pedagogy and to create new training programs for a second generation of global negotiation education. She taught and developed the business mediation, mediation advocacy and conflict management course at Utrecht University.
Download Manon’s mediator profile with examples of mediations, negotiations and deal facilitations.
Manon Schonewille is recommended as mediator and selected for the 2014-2020 editions of Who's Who Legal in Mediation. She is one of 298 worldwide selected experts in the field and as such a leading expert in The Netherlands. She is also selected for the Global Mediation Panel of the UN Ombudsman office to mediate disputes for five UN organisations (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, and UN-Women).
Summary of other functions
- Board Memeber of IMI, The International Mediation Institute
- Past-chair of the International Committee of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association
- Member of IMI’s Independent Standards Committee
- Chair of IMI’s Mediation Advocacy Task Force
- Assessor for performance based assessment for MfN, Mediators Federation Netherlands, IMI Certified Mediator, IMI Certified Intercultural Mediator, IMI Certified Mediation Advocate and IMI Certified Mediation Advisor
- Developing and teaching from 2008-2013 the ‘Business Mediation, mediation advocacy and conflict management’ course (as part of the interfaculty Minor in Mediation), at Utrecht University.
Conferences and publications
Manon Schonewille is frequently invited to speak at conferences and she publishes regularly. Several standard reference works and articles on mediation, deal facilitation and negotiation are written by her, including Toolkit Generating Outcomes and Toolkit Mediation Advocacy, The Variegated Landscape of Mediation (editor).
See the publications and invited lectures overview of Manon.
More about me (in Dutch) on my personal website and on my LinkedIn profile. Or this page.