Rachel Milner Gillers

Senior Associate

Rachel Milner Gillers is a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building Institute, where she is a trainer, mediator and facilitator specializing in multi-stakeholder consensus building processes, conflict management, and negotiation skill building.  Rachel has helped diverse clients including NGOs, government agencies, and corporations to identify and overcome individual and organizational barriers to negotiating better agreements.

Prior to joining CBI, Rachel developed a mediation training program with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cambodia, where she trained mediators and trainers from UNDP and the Ministries of Justice and the Interior. She has facilitated workshops for mediators and negotiators at the Harvard Mediation Program and the Harvard Negotiation Institute. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, Rachel has lived and worked in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Rachel speaks Hebrew, conversational German and Spanish, and basic Arabic.

Areas of Focus
International development, commercial negotiation, environmental conservation standards setting, communication in negotiation, agricultural policy, and public health.

Highlighted Projects

  • United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): In collaboration with UNFPA, delivered integrated workshops on UN Reform at regional offices in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean for country representatives and senior staff. Workshops provided training in inter-agency negotiation, consensus building and strategic priority setting, and opportunity for facilitated dialogue and peer-to-peer exchange on issues related to UN Reform.
  • Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS): Assisted with multi-stakeholder process design for the development of international water stewardship standards. Co-facilitated effort to bring together water authorities, companies, local communities and environmental NGOs worldwide to establish a voluntary certification program for water managers and users.
  • Healthy Farms, Healthy People Summit: Co-facilitated a Centers for Disease Control (CDC)-sponsored initiative bringing together leaders in public health and agriculture to identify overlap regarding the 2012 Farm Bill and potential for partnerships and/or coalitions.
  • World Health Organization (WHO): In partnership with the Bridgeway Group, delivered workshops worldwide on improving external negotiations with governments, UN agencies, civil society, and other partners, as well as on managing internal conflict within WHO.

Education

Rachel holds Master’s degrees from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard Divinity School and a B.A. from Yeshiva University.