David Gurteen is a speaker, writer, and conversational host.
He specializes in Knowledge Management, Organizational Learning, and Conversational Leadership. Through talks, workshops, Knowledge Cafés, and one-to-one conversations, he helps people think together, make sense of complex situations, and decide what to do.
He is best known as the creator of the Gurteen Knowledge Café – a versatile conversational process that brings a group of people together to learn from each other, share experiences, and make better sense of a rapidly changing, complex, and less predictable world, thereby improving decision-making and innovation.
For more than two decades, he has facilitated hundreds of Knowledge Cafés and workshops in over 30 countries worldwide.
He is the founder of the Gurteen Knowledge Community – a global network of more than 20,000 people across more than 160 countries. He has published his regular monthly Knowledge-Letter for over 25 years.
David curates the Conversational Leadership website, a living, evolving resource that combines a blog and a blook. It brings together articles, reflections, conversations, and practical material on Knowledge Management and Conversational Leadership, along with curated resources including books, quotations, and videos. The site also serves as a place to explore ideas over time, hosting his developing online blook where they are worked out in public.
He is the editor of the book Leading Issues in Social Knowledge Management, published by Academic Publishing International. In June 2010, David won the Ark Group’s lifetime achievement award for services to Knowledge Management.
He holds a degree in Physics and began his career as a computer-aided design engineer at British Aerospace. Later, he worked as a software development manager at Prime Computer, designing and implementing early networking and file-sharing systems. He then moved on to Lotus Development, where he served as the European Software Development Manager, overseeing the localization of Lotus 1-2-3 (an early spreadsheet application) into multiple languages.
He reached the pinnacle of his corporate career as the International Czar for Lotus Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this role, he was responsible for ensuring that all software products were designed for the international market. In 1993, he left Lotus and became an independent consultant and facilitator.
Videos
Knowledge Sharing Workshop | Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Dubai, 2013 | David Gurteen (source)Keynote talk, Dubai Forum for Government Best Practice, 2014 | David Gurteen (source)
APM Conference May 2016 | David Gurteen (source)
Gurteen Knowledge Café: Worcestershire Innovation, Worcester, 2017 (source)
Conversational Leadership, European Commission, Brussels, 2018 | David Gurteen (source)
Innovation through Conversation 2022 | Dubai Municipality | David Gurteen (source)
Sharing Tacit Knowledge with the Knowledge Café, 2022 (source)
Selected past clients
Over the years, I have worked with a range of global institutions, major corporations, and government bodies, across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and beyond. A small selection includes:
- European Commission (Belgium)
- UNESCO (Jamaica)
- IBM (Singapore)
- Johnson & Johnson (Ireland)
- SABIC (Saudi Arabia)
- Cabinet Office (UK)
- Financial Conduct Authority (UK)
- European Patent Office (Netherlands)
- Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) (UAE)
- UN System Staff College (Switzerland)
- Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysia)
- Petrobras (Brazil)
Downloads
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In-person, 7–11 September 2026
Warbrook House, Hampshire, UK
We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. This week-long workshop with David Gurteen and John Hovell offers a space to practise Conversational Leadership as a shared, lived experience.