ACHIM NOWAK is the founder and president of Influens, an international training and coaching firm that develops resonant leaders. He has coached hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives from many of the world's Fortune 500 companies. Achim integrates an extensive background in personal transformation techniques, conflict resolution, and actor training that has been honed through years of training actors and non-actors alike, for institutions such as The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Actors Institute, and the OBIE-award winning Theatre for a New Audience.

As a senior course leader for Langevin Learning Services, the largest train-the-trainer company in the world, Achim has conducted seminars about every facet of human performance improvement throughout North America and Europe. When not coaching business leaders, he can be found leading conflict transformation initiatives in some of the chronic conflict regions of the world, for organizations such as UNESCO, Seeds of Peace, the National Coalition for Community and Justice, and the Peres Center for Peace.

Achim holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology and International Relations from New York University and received his Mediation training at the New York City Courts. He served for over a decade on the faculty of New York University and currently teaches at the University of Massachusetts School of Management. He has also been a frequent guest speaker at other universities such as Amherst College, Brandeis University, and Columbia University. Since its publication, Power Speaking: The Art of the Exceptional Public Speaker has become an essential speaker development tool in numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Achim and his work have been featured on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, NPR, The Miami Herald, and in the award-winning documentary The Last Enemy.