Stuart D.G. Robinson is specialised in how to prevent, de-escalate and resolve serious crises, conflicts and dysfunctionality in political, corporate and private life and in how to build optimal organisational cultures, e.g. a culture which should focus on customer-centricity and, at the same time, not weaken but strengthen the mental-emotional health of the employees and the resilience of the organisation.

Widely acknowledged for his unconditional empathy - which stems from what others have termed his "radical cultural and ethical neutrality" - Stuart has a professional reputation for three things in particular: firstly, for being able to pinpoint the veritable causes of dissonance and distress in an astoundingly fast manner and then facilitating the corresponding solutions; secondly, for helping organisations to craft and develop a corporate culture and code of ethics which accurately matches their visions and activities; thirdly, for assessing the "deep-ethics" of applicants and incumbents of very senior positions and the extent to which they genuinely are - or would be - the right people in the right place with the right perspectives.

Since founding the 5C CENTRE in Switzerland in 1991, his specialist expertise is drawn upon by the owners and senior managers of a wide variety of large organisations in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and the Far East. He has held Supervisory Board directorship for companies in Australia, Belgium, Chile, China, France, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Switzerland, USA and Urguguay. Not seldom, shareholders have requested Stuart to de-escalate and resolve serious dissonance and/or dysfunctionality within their organisations and then asked him to either join their board of directors or to take on the function of Managing Director until matters had been fully rectified and the entity was functioning again in a resilient manner as it should.

Having operated internationally from Switzerland for over thirty years, Stuart has recently returned to his natal roots in the South-West of England with the objective of sharing what he has learnt around the world with a greater number of people and organisations in Britain, alongside his continued work in Switzerland and other countries. Stuart has now completed a series of new articles which are focussed on corporate and individual resilience, where he explains the role which aesthetics, culture and ethics play in either seriously damaging or solidly strengthening the mental-emotional health, resilience and viability of organisations and their employees (see 'Articles' - to be found under 'Our Services'). He works primarily in English, Swiss-German, High German and French, has also studied Italian, Latin and understands some Spanish.

Stuart Robinson has been observing and resolving personal crises and inter-organisational conflicts for over thirty years, particularly those involving different sets of "cultural principles" and "ethical standpoints". Over the past twenty years, in particular, he has been deepening his understanding of how and why the culture and ethics of organisations affects the mental-emotional health and resilience of their employees.  

With his original academic background from Britain in Linguistics, with Psychology and later in Philosophy, he has been eclectically following international research and theoretical developments very closely and has retained a highly intuitive style in his prevention-, intervention- and conciliation-work.

At the core of his approach lie cultural and ethical neutrality (see his article 'The Value of Neutrality') and the development of interethical competence (see also 'Interethical Competence'). This form of neutrality forms the foundation of his work in analysing the cultural and ethical profiles of individuals and organisations, not only in audits, assessments and coaching, but also in cases of acute and even armed, life-threatening conflict where he might only have a few minutes to analyse the roots of serious tension. Given the increasing manifestations of dissonance between societies and leaders with strongly differing ethics and given also the rapid evolution of ethical fluidity, Stuart regards interethical competence as being one of the key competences for people who hold positions of significant responsibility, but sees that it is seriously under-developed in most organisations and societies.

Having shared his first-hand, international experience with others through media interviews, articles and also through the coaching and supervision of other crisis specialists and intercultural mediators, he prefers today to "do his work", rather than "talk about it." Confidentiality and discretion being highly crucial to his work, Stuart also safeguards the identities of his clients by avoiding any personal presence in the social media.

Included in his wide range of practical and theoretical experience, he draws from time to time on insights from a variety of sources such as the Chinese "I Ching" Classic of Changes, a book of wisdom dating back over three thousand years about how people’s situations can change negatively or positively.

Stuart's personal views on "crisis" and "conflict"

• "I see "crisis" and "conflict" as the birthplace of long-term positive change, even if, in the short term, such change is sometimes deeply painful."
• "In principle, the parties who have been able to create a conflict should also be able to get themselves out of it.  Human nature, however, allows us to get so hurt or angry as a conflict builds up, that we often need skilled, outside help to de-fuse it. This is because the triggers for our emotions lie deep inside our value-systems and outside the normal scope of our personal control. Optimally, parties-in-conflict should search for such external help together, rather than going separate ways. 
  The latter generally only: 
  i) escalates the conflict, 
  ii) destroys the relationship beyond repair and 
  iii) prolongs the resolution process at significant extra cost."
• "The phenomenon of "intent" has fascinated me for many years. I observe time and time again how people’s perceived intentions are, in fact, nothing but distortions created through the dynamics of relationships and through cultural and ethical differences as well as personality differences. Unfortunately, these distorted perceptions of intent can become irreversible realities in the relationship - that is, until the conflict is unravelled and resolved."
• "What concerns me deeply, beyond the suffering of those directly involved, are those parties who are indirectly hurt by a conflict – these can be employees who lose their careers or their jobs, children who lose united parenthood, the social and natural environment around us etc. Conflict resolution work, if approached holistically, can - and arguably should - address the predicaments of the voiceless."

As an experienced and skilled negotiator, Stuart Robinson not only helps clients to prepare their negotiations in advance but also, where requested, does the actual negotiating on their behalf.

Alongside his linguistic skills, he is well-known for his diplomacy, listening ability, interconnected-thinking, integrity and sheer toughness, where appropriate. He negotiates with financial institutions, creditors, attorneys, managers etc.