ABOUT PHILIP HORVÁTH
Forty years asking the same question from different angles.
What does it actually take for a human being, or a human organization, to change, at depth, in a way that lasts?
I started meditating at 12. At 13 I was replacing typewriters with PCs and building databases in dBase. I have watched technology externalize human intelligence from the inside ever since.
I have looked for answers in boardrooms and meditation retreats. In neuroscience laboratories and ancient wisdom traditions. In transformation programs across forty countries, and in the quieter work of sitting with individual leaders trying to find their ground.
What I keep finding is the same.
Transformation fails in the people carrying it, not in the plan. The limiting factor is rarely the strategy, the technology or the process. It is the developmental capacity of the people inside the system: their ability to author their own responses rather than react from habit, to relate across difference, to hold complexity without collapsing into certainty. In a word, coherence.
Learning to develop that is my life’s work. I am still learning.
THE WORK
My work spans two roles most people keep separate.
As a keynote speaker, I have spoken from Berlin to Bangalore, San Francisco to Tokyo, helping organizations make sense of what AI, culture change and leadership in transformation ask of their people. I aim less to motivate than to help people see their situation differently.
As a transformation advisor and human-development practitioner, I co-founded LUMAN, which works with large, complex organizations on the conditions that let change hold.
The thread connecting both is one inquiry: what human beings are capable of, and what gets in the way.
One engagement taught me the most. For ten years I co-designed and co-led the Siemens intrapreneurs bootcamp: 1,000+ intrapreneurs across more than forty countries. It was not a one-off event. It was a decade of learning, together with colleagues at Siemens, what human development at scale looks like when it holds. You can download the case study here.
THE RESEARCH
My work draws on human development traditions from the rigorously scientific to the rigorously ancient. Both are serious inquiries into the same territory.
I have drawn from several wells. Over four decades, the inquiry has taken me from corporate boardrooms to contemplative communities, from neuroscience laboratories to indigenous teachers, always asking what makes real human change possible.
The list below is not a credential list. It is an honest account of where my answers came from.
40 Years Meditation and Mindfulness · Masters in Transformational Psychology · Autogenic Training · Yoga Teacher Training · Ontological Coaching · Neuroscience for High Performance · Somatic Experiencing Masterclass · Non-Violent Communication · Master in Transformational Training · Organizational Development and Design · Neurolinguistic Programming · General Semantics · Alchemy, Magick & Occult Studies · 21st Century Hermetics · Shamanism · Entheogen Therapy & Research · Kundalini · Tantra · Qabalah · Tarot · Integral Theory · Integral Yoga · Info-Psychology · Systems Theory · Systemic Design
The breadth is not eccentricity. It is discipline.
THE PERSON
I have always lived on the edge of technological and cultural development.
I grew up between cultures, which gave me an early education in what my work now addresses directly: the difference between adapting to a system and creating new ones.
I started as an enterprise architect and program manager for enterprise transformation. Taking a break from the corporate world, I co-founded a non-profit for Conscious Creativity that became part of a UN think tank. I lived in one of the world’s largest artist colonies and ran a gallery in Los Angeles. I lived as a digital glomad for five years on three continents. I helped build the Siemens intrapreneurs bootcamp. I studied with teachers from traditions that rarely make it onto leadership curricula. I wrote. I taught. I kept asking the question.
I am now completing my first book, The Relational Age: a personal and intimate examination of what human development requires when process execution is no longer a uniquely human capacity.
I live in Berlin and Los Angeles. I speak English and German (plus tiny bits of French and Spanish, and I am learning Japanese).
Most of my work today is with European and DACH organizations navigating transformation. I also work with leaders across North America and Asia.
PHILIP & LUMAN
My organizational work is delivered through LUMAN, the human development consultancy I co-founded with CEO Tirza Hollenhorst. LUMAN designs and delivers programs at scale: Transformation Communities, leadership development curricula, AI adoption frameworks. I bring the depth of inquiry. Tirza brings the operational architecture and rigor. Together we have built something neither of us could have built alone.
If you would like to bring me into your organization for a keynote, a workshop or a sustained advisory relationship, the next step is a conversation.
Organizational transformation at scale
LUMAN works with People, Transformation and Innovation leaders to design and deliver cohort-based environments where real capability gets built alongside real business outcomes. Explore LUMAN →
“Philip is an exceptional human being. He brings in an incredible depth on highly relevant topics for the new age, such as Organisational Culture, Purpose and Innovation. His ability to distill and navigate the main issues even during the most difficult situations is unrivalled. He moderates tricky situations and always has an eye out for the greater good. Beyond his strong human touch, Philip thinks in systems and processes to develop long-lasting, repeatable concepts for real change in organisations. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Philip – you’ve missed out if you haven’t yet.”
Daniel Nowack
Head of Social Entrepreneurship World Economic Forum
“Philip is an inspirational leader very rare to find. Philip is humble enough to take a step back while at the same time pushing the edge of what is possible. He masters the art of creating space for others to rise for greater impact. He draws from deep knowledge and understanding of building bridges between the human factor and technological as well as societal developments. With his curious mind, Philip is constantly at the edge of the next level, the greater impact, the even deeper understanding – a true creator of emerging futures.”
Laura Engelhardt
Head of Strategy Foundational Technologies SIEMENS