Tatyana Fertelmeyster, MA, LCPC, is founder and principal of Connecting Differences, LLC. She works as a consultant, trainer, and coach with organizations, teams, and individuals. For Tatyana, Connecting Differences is her passion and not just the name of her consulting company.

Tatyana is fascinated with process rather than content. She sees tolerance as one’s ability to tolerate oneself while engaging with others across differences and from that perspective Personal Leadership becomes her main approach.

She uses PL to help develop the effectiveness and resilience of professionals working with diversity and intercultural relations. She uses it to teach leaders to effectively engage challenging situations. And she teaches PL at the Qatar Institute for Intercultural Communication, as well as incorporating it into all her classes at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, which is a birthplace of PL.Tatyana is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in intercultural communication, diversity and inclusion. Her unique technique of Spontaneous Facilitation allows her to work with individuals and groups with maximum concentration on the reality of the present moment. Using this technique, Tatyana facilitates group processes in a way that engages participants in discovery and self-discovery, challenges them to go deeper, and incorporates every teachable moment. She leads her clients in arriving at deeper levels of insight that facilitate the development of practical and sustainable skills.Tatyana is a co-author of the Russian version of the Cultural Detective™, and she is a Master Trainer of Facilitators for the Cultural Detective™ model. She is a past president of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR-USA).Tatyana received an MA in Journalism from Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia, and an MA in Guidance and Counseling from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Illinois. She is a Licensed Counselor.