Ms Ana Maria Maia Gonçalves
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +60 19 726 05 10
Mobile: +351 917 57 60 56
Video profile: http://www.icfml.org/
Website: http://www.convirgente.com/
Experience Qualification Path
Address:
E&O Residences
E&O Residences 1, Jalan Tengah off Jalan Sultan Ismail
Unit 1 25/2
Kuala Lumpur, 50450
Malaysia
Category 2: ADR Group
Mediation locations
Malaysia, Portugal, France, United Kingdom, Angola, Mozambique, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal,
Australia - NSW, Brazil
Mediation languages
English, French, Portuguese
Current position and background
Ana has experience as a lawyer, teacher, mediator and organizational developer. She combines 20
years of experience with an exceptional triple curriculum, as a former IT industry executive, an
ADR neutral and trainer, but also as an executive coach (she has 800 hours of coaching and is at
the PCC level in the ICF accreditation).
She is a founder of Convirgente, the first Appropriate Dispute Resolution Consulting Company in
Portugal.
Ana is a graduate from UAL Lisbon and has a Master of Law (2008). She followed Mediation
Courses in several institutions in UK, France, Portugal, USA, and Australia. Ana is an Accredited
Mediator for ADR group, panelist of CPR, she is listed as an internationally recognized commercial
mediator in the Who's Who Legal since 2011 and is part of the Portuguese mediators list of
"Julgados de Paz". Ana is also an ADR trainer in several Universities and with the European
Academy of Law (ERA). Being very active across frontiers and cultures, she has focused her
practice in the last years on the impact of online technology on the skills of ADR neutrals and has
delivered lectures on that topic in several conferences.
What struck most of people that know Ana is her intercultural prowess: she has lived, worked and
traveled in many countries, and she recognizes and adapts easily to a wide range of different
demands and settings. She is a lawyer and mediator (like so many) but her senior management
experience at Microsoft has equipped her with a ready understanding of the nature of cross-border
business and its complexities in a globalized business environment. Ana is an ideas person, but her
deep roots in business and also in the law give her the unique ability to put those ideas in ways that
resonate with business, while assisting business people to think beyond the usual boundaries of
problem-solving. She is trilingual, another great asset in the English-, Portuguese- and
French-speaking worlds.
BUSINESS EXPERIENCE:
* Customer Service Director of Microsoft France, with a division of more than 100 people;
* Director of Critical Support Service Centre of Microsoft Europe;
* Founder of Convirgente, the first Appropriate Dispute Resolution Consulting Company in
Portugal.
Ana is the President of the ICFML - Instituto de Certificação e Formação de Mediadores
Lusófonos, a non-profit organization competent for the certification of Portuguese speaking
mediators applying for the IMI accreditation and a member of the Portuguese FMC - Federação
Nacional de Mediação de Conflitos.
Ana also works inside the organizations world, delivering collaboration management training to
several large and medium Global organizations and assisting Senior Executives and Lawyers in
developing their conflict management and negotiation skills, both in person and online. Ana has an
active role in helping Asian subsidiaries of Global organizations integrating mediation techniques in
their leadership framework model and in promoting internal ADR as a tool to multicultural conflict
resolution.
The best way to summarize Ana's character is to say she is passionate, intuitive, generous and
obstinate. She actually lives in Kuala Lumpur with her husband and has 2 children, Marie, 30, who
lives in Sydney and Thomas, 12, who lives with his parents.
Main mediation practice areas
Ana's experience covers both workplace and business disputes. Areas covered are Employment,
General Commercial,Technology, Community and Family.
Mediation experience
Ana has mediated a wide variety of disputes including, business, partnership, employment,
property, personal injury and family disputes in France, Portugal, Australia and Asia.
Description of mediation style
Ana has an experience of the English mediation model and of the Australian mediation model and
she uses the best of each model depending on customer needs, culture and interests. Ana puts a lot
of time and effort on the preparation of the mediation. Her first step is to make sure that parties
are comfortable making all disclosures that have to be made and are comfortable about the process
she'll use. She finds it especially useful to have either a pre-mediation conference call or a
pre-mediation private meeting with each party in highly emotional or very complex disputes. These
preliminary contacts that go over ground rules have a critical role in increasing the commitment of
parties to the mediation and to the idea of settlement. Ana´s approach during the mediation is
really about building - building trust in the mediator, building trust in the process, building
understanding of issues, and building conscience of the real impact of settlement or no settlement
in the future life of the parties and/or in the future of the relationship between them. Ana uses her
sense of humility and empathy to be non-judgmental in relation to each party's mind-set and to
understand and respond to their individual perceptions. Whenever it´s possible, she uses joint
sessions rather than private sessions (caucuses). She stimulates the parties and their counsels to
leverage the privileged arena of the mediation session and think "out of the box" to reach a smart
and durable decision.
Code of professional conduct
IMI Code of Professional Conduct
European code of conduct for mediators
Complaint process
IMI Professional Conduct Assessment Process
Professional indemnity insurance
None
Feedback digest
Reviewer: De Botton Isabel ( [email protected] )
Latest Update: 2016-03-10 00:55:47
This Feedback Digest is based no 28 Feedbacks in 22 Mediations, initially submitted in 2009. The
feedback reports came from companies and parties who saw Ms Goncalves mediating. 40% of the
feedbacks forms came from Europe, 20% came from US and 60% come from Asia. (Ms Goncalves
moved to Kuala Lumpur in February 2014).
Ms Goncalves is rated at a high performance level by participants for whom she has acted as a
mediator. The feedback received on her performance was extremely positive and continues to
demonstrate consistent best practice. All who responded would recommend Mrs Gonçalves as a
mediator, and would be confident to engage her again, themselves.
She is described as an optimistic, motivated and patient person who helped parties move the
process forward even on difficult moments. Her creativity, flexibility and perspective-taking
continue to be part of her set of major skills noted by the parties.
Ms Goncalves ability to prepare participants to maximize the likelihood of an agreement being
reached was noted in the feedback. Also noted, more than once, was her sensitivity to parties'
culture and her neutrality and impartiality especially in cross-border disputes.
Her high capacity of perspective-taking and realism combined with warmth, allowing her to deal
with people in a respectful and productive manner was also noted.
Participants felt that her creativity, flexibility and open-mindedness had a positive influence on the
parties, and that she had a special capacity to stimulate the respective participation of parties and
counsels. They appreciated her neutrality and impartiality, especially in multicultural and
cross-border disputes, and considered that she had a rich repertoire of mediation techniques.
A high proportion of Ms Goncalves's mediations resulted in a resolution. Again, she was especially
congratulated for her flexibility and open-mindedness, positively influencing the parties.
All parties recommended Mrs Gonçalves for future mediations. No reportable negative comments
have arisen.
Mediation education and training
* International Advanced Mediation Course (MATA - Mediation and Training Alternatives UK)
* Cinergy™ Conflict Coach Introductory workshop (Alice Springs)
* Executive Certificate in Positive Psychology Coaching (UTS - Sydney)
* Accredited Mediator (LEADR - Sydney)
* Certified trainer (Mediation Training Institute)
* Executive Coach -Level I (Escola Europeia de Coaching)
* International Coach Federation - PCC level
* Accredited Mediator (ADR Group)
* Mediator (IMAP - Instituto de Mediação e Arbitragem de Portugal)
* Master of Law (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa)
Mediation teaching and mentoring
Ana is a lecturer in the major Portuguese Universities on the topics of Alternative Dispute
Resolution, Mediation and Negotiation. She is a regular speaker in International Conferences
(including ERA Academy of European Law, International Mediation Alliance) and participated as a
judge in several Mediation competition of the International Chamber of Commerce (Paris). She is
also finalizing her thesis on "Commercial Mediation in Portugal". Ana is part of an european task on
online mediation and online mediation training. Ana works with Brazilian universities and
chambers of commerce to promote IMI standards and IMI certification and with Malaysia
institutions to implement internal ADR.
Mediation publications
Ana Maria Maia Gonçalves co-Authored the Portuguese Chapter of the EU Handbook on Mediation
Law - Oxford University Press (to be published in 2012).
Note: This Mediator Profile is intended to offer guidance to users of mediation services about
the competency, skills, styles and potential suitability of the IMI Certified Mediator featured
above. The Reviewer, the Mediator and IMI are attempting to present fair, balanced and objective
information but none are to be held responsible for reliance on the information given. Users of
mediation services are encouraged to pursue further research before selecting the IMI Certified
Mediator, including contacting references and conducting an interview with the Mediator before
making a selection.