Dr. Lara Tcholakian is a leadership scholar-practitioner and organizational development consultant with over 25 years of international experience working at the intersection of leadership and systems thinking in Canada, Armenia, Lebanon, Peru, and Sri Lanka. 

She is a Founding Partner of Elevate and holds a Doctorate in Management & Organizations. She lectures on leadership, management, and systems psychodynamics at leading academic institutions in Europe and the Middle East. Her expertise lies in trauma-informed leadership, mindful and conscious leadership, organizational development, governance and gender equity. She focuses particularly on fragile and conflict-affected settings, where the role of conscious leadership is central to building trust and resilience. 

She has held senior positions in governmental organizations (Canadian Foreign Affairs – formerly CIDA), private corporations, and NGOs (WUSC, Eurasia Partnership Foundation) on embedding responsible business conduct and human-centric governance frameworks. Her consulting and facilitation work integrates psychodynamic systems thinking with peacebuilding and ESG principles, enabling companies to surface unconscious organizational dynamics, mitigate risks, and strengthen their contribution to stability and sustainable development. 

Lara has led and co-facilitated high-level leadership and change programs at INSEAD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Matena International School of Leadership, and has several peer-reviewed publications on the topic of leadership, collective trauma, and historical consciousness. She has extensive experience supporting executives and teams operating in post-conflict and transitional societies, including in the South Caucasus and the Middle East. 

Fluent in Armenian, English, French and Spanish, Lara brings a deep understanding of intercultural contexts, psychological safety, and systemic risk, ensuring that organizational interventions are human-centric, context-sensitive and ethically grounded.