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Portrait of Merrick Hoben standing in front of a sunny, leafy background.

Commencement Speaker

Merrick Hoben

Merrick Hoben is director of CBI’s Washington, D.C. Regional Office where he provides assessment, facilitation, training, coaching and dispute system design services to public and private clients worldwide. Mr. Hoben also co-leads CBI’s Corporate-Community Engagement Practice Area. His core competence is helping organizations, companies and diverse groups apply negotiation and consensus building tools toward more creative, effective and efficient stakeholder engagement and decision-making. 

Internationally, he has worked with numerous multilateral development agencies, global NGOs, governments, major companies and other national partners to institutionalize collaborative approaches to planning, resource and project management. Mr. Hoben is a Practitioner Associate at the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program and Faculty Associate at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is fluent in Spanish. 

Mr. Hoben helps communities, companies and authorities to interact more constructively and engage in productive problem solving; address historical grievances and mistrust; and explore creative solutions to complex environmental and social dilemmas. He has expertise in agricultural commodity supply sustainability chains, the extractive industry and international development issues. Mr. Hoben helps lead regional and global efforts to create environmental and social standards for key aquaculture and food commodities. He works with both community-based organizations and Fortune 500s alike to strengthen dialogue capacity, improve community relations and social performance. Mr. Hoben also supports complex teams transitioning toward higher levels of impact and organizational strategic planning. 

Mr. Hoben holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resource and Policy, with a thesis in Dispute Resolution and Human Behavior. He is a faculty associate at the Lincoln Institute for Land Use Policy and a board member for The Access Facility, a dispute resolution resource group