Embodied leadership
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We partner with founders, families, and long-horizon investors to cultivate embodied leadership — the kind that sustains performance, builds aligned teams, and supports both human and planetary flourishing..
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VORTEX

This work has been evolving for nearly four decades. It began in 1985 during a three-month wilderness leadership expedition in Alaska — where one insight became clear: transformation does not begin with strategy, but with state.
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What became undeniable was that the deepest growth was not driven by tactics alone, but by each person’s state of mind, quality of relationships, and capacity to fully release into presence and play. In the wilderness, leadership revealed itself not as control, but as awareness — and the joy of being fully alive, attuned, and in flow with nature.

VORTEX

Over the decades that followed, this insight matured through work at the highest levels of global leadership. As a pioneering C-suite executive search advisor across Asia, deep partnerships were built with founders, investors, and enterprise leaders navigating growth, scale, and succession.
Yet alongside success came a pattern: extraordinary external achievement often coexisted with internal fragmentation. The state of clarity and flow discovered in Alaska was increasingly difficult to sustain amid travel, capital pressure, and relentless expansion.
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Vortex emerged not as an escape from leadership — but as a laboratory for strengthening it. A place to recalibrate nervous systems, restore coherence, and reconnect high-performing leaders to the state from which their best decisions are made.

VORTEX

In 2016, these threads formally converged into Vortex — integrating Eastern and Western philosophy, executive advisory experience, and modern leadership science into a unified embodied-leadership framework.
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Over time, this framework evolved further into Surfing the Tsunami in 2025 - a practical system for cultivating adaptive, regulated, and coherent leadership in the age of AI. What began as an exploration of personal transformation matured into a platform for founder development, team alignment, and long-horizon value creation.

Our Lead Experience facilitator

Chris Traub

For nearly four decades, Chris has worked at the intersection of executive search, venture building, and human transformation. His work bridges boardrooms and wilderness, helping leaders develop the clarity, resilience, and presence required to navigate complexity.
Chris has advised and partnered with global leaders across technology, finance, and enterprise, and has been an active member of communities including the World Economic Forum, Forbes Global CEO, and TED. His approach integrates strategic insight with embodied practice — supporting individuals and teams to lead with coherence under pressure. At Vortex, Chris serves as Lead Facilitator, guiding the overall experience and the integration of each journey.

Leslie Traub

Master of Science in biostatistics and epidemiology from Tulane University
Personal development expert
Leslie Traub offers Cook Ross clients exceptional facilitation and training, inspiring and evidentiary instructional designs, meaningful organizational change, and transformative personal development. With more than 30 years of experience leading diversity, inclusion, and change management initiatives.

Nestor Perez

Nestor L. Perez, Jr. is a meditation teacher, Chi Nei Tsang, Shiatsu, Holistic Health Practitioner, and Coach of Fortune 500 CEO's.
Nestor is well known for his deep healing techniques and insightful guidance. He had previously practiced in the United States and India before plunging full-time into handling stress management programs for individuals and corporations.

Ricardo Sookdeo

A teacher of mindfulness practice, energy management and a coach to leaders around the world
Ricardo helps leaders to improve their effectiveness by training their attention and mind to have more focus and clarity, and supports them to bring more selflessness and compassion into their leadership practice.

Jennie Harland-Khan

Divine Living Certified Coach, Life Success Consultant
A Bali based transformational coach for high performers who have a track record of success who don’t ‘need’ a coach. Her clients include serial entrepreneurs, innovators, and those pushing the boundaries around the globe who are mission based, and are non-negotiable about living meaningful and adventurous lives.

Howard Ross

Advocate and Founding Partner of Cook Ross
Washington DC–based Howard Ross is a lifelong social justice advocate and the Founding Partner of Cook Ross, a leading global Diversity consultancy. He is considered one of the world’s seminal thought leaders on identifying and addressing Unconscious Bias.  

Dr Shalika Shetty

MBBS, BSc, MSc, MRCPCH
Dr Shalika Shetty brings her integrative healthcare approach to the Vortex group.  She is a paediatrician based in Sydney, Australia who has a long-standing interest in person-centred care, and alternative & integrative health.

Jake Ross

A researcher in the fields of wellbeing, community engagement, and interpersonal connection
Interested in the blending of psychology and neuroscience with holistic practice, Jake’s specialties include training and developing teamsand intensive one-on-one coaching. With other 10 years of experience in transformational workshops, Jake’s focus on spirituality has led him on the cutting edge of transformational research.

Dr. Gretchen Dobson

With over 23 years of experience in higher education and constituent relations
Her specialties include international alumni relations strategy, international alumni and academic partnerships, internationalstudent-alumni programs, and volunteer management for groups of all sizes and backgrounds.

Dr. Shubhro Sen

An entrepreneur, business leader and educator
Dr. Shubhro Sen is the Director of the School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University. He is the Director and Vision Custodian of the Entrepreneurship Incubator and Venture accelerator@SNU - one of the very few in the country to be recognized and co-funded by the Niti Ayog and Atal Innovation Mission of the Indian government.

Manav S. Mehta

A Taipei-based community leader, event organizer, and communications specialist.
Multilingual in expression, multicultural by design, with a strong background in event operations, logistics management, and stage show hosting. A curator who believes that creativity thrives within boundaries. A team player who chooses to explore all angles so that the most suitable approach is chosen. Motivation and drive come from social and collaborative interaction.
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Join Chris Traub and a global community of embodied leaders for immersive, real-world transformation.

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