The Mindful Negotiating Team
Max Bevilacqua, Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy
Founder, Managing Director
Max is the Founder and Managing Director of Mindful Negotiating, an interdisciplinary negotiation training and consulting practice equipping teams and organizations to navigate conflict mindfully.
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Prior to founding Mindful Negotiating, Max advised and trained Fortune 100 Executives, Business Development Teams, and US Special Forces as a Senior Trainer at Vantage Partners. Max has been on the teaching team of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Winter Negotiation Workshop, the Program on Negotiation’s (PON) Spring Mediation and Conflict Resolution Seminar, Harvard Negotiation Institute’s (HNI) Summer Workshop, and PON’s Executive Education Masterclass. Max has taught Negotiations in the Department of Management and Organizations at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, Negotiating Leadership at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and currently Teaches Negotiation and Conflict Management in Massachusetts Correctional Institutions.
Max served as the Executive Director of In Good Faith, an INGO which translated Elie Wiesel’s Night into Bahasa Indonesia and led interfaith programming amongst universities in the U.S. and Indonesia. Max received a Fulbright Scholarship (‘13) to Central Java and sits on the board of the community-led environmental conservation non-profit, Planet Indonesia.
Max holds a Master’s Degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he studied International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (MALD ‘18). He received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in Religious Studies (‘12).
Colleen Tolan Ph.D.
VP Research
Dr. Tolan currently serves as the research associate for the Center for Women in Business at Rutgers Business School. She holds a PhD in conflict communication from the Klein School of Media & Communication at Temple University and has published academic papers on the topics of negotiation, conflict communication, and theory building.
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Her main areas of research include interpersonal communication, language framing, and decision-making as they relate to stressful situations.
Dr. Tolan is passionate about using research-based interventions and tools to help others navigate conflict and negotiate effectively. While completing her doctorate, she taught courses at Temple University and worked on multiple grants including ACR JAMS and DOJ, STOP School Violence both of which focused on systems-involved youth to develop their conflict skills in an effort towards reducing youth violence. In her consulting work, she treats every case as unique and aims to help clients clarify specific dynamics that may be keeping them from a more effective workplace or relationship.
Dr. Tolan holds an MDiv from Princeton Seminary and a B.S. in Journalism and Sociology from University of Kansas – and is an avid Jayhawks basketball fan. She is a Chicago native but currently resides in Philadelphia.
Melissa Fortunato, Ret. Special Agent
VP Incident Response
Melissa is a retired FBI Special Agent with over 23 years as a federal law enforcement officer, assigned to New York City and Cleveland field offices.
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Melissa was a certified FBI crisis Negotiator and Undercover Agent. She spent her last 15 years as an FBI crisis Negotiator; leading FBI Cleveland’s Crisis Negotiation Team for 10 of those years. In this capacity, she successfully resolved domestic and international kidnappings, barricaded subjects, and other crisis events. Melissa planned and executed formal crisis negotiation training for hundreds of law enforcement officers. Moreover, she worked as an assessor and coach for the FBI’s National Crisis Negotiation Course. In 2020, Melissa was selected by the FBI to instruct at the International law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Budapest, Hungary, where she taught crisis negotiation strategies to international law enforcement officers. In addition to her FBI training, Melissa represented the FBI in 2019 as a student at the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) Hostage Negotiation Course in London, England.
As an FBI undercover agent, Melissa operated domestically and internationally. Her undercover portfolio included transnational organized crime, public corruption, drug trafficking, and counterintelligence matters. One of the cases in which she was directly involved as an undercover agent was briefed to the President of the United States and was recognized with the FBI Director’s Award.
Melissa is Founder and Chief Negotiation Officer for the Alchemy Team. She is married with two daughters. Her husband is an Assistant Special Agent in Charge of FBI Cleveland, where he leads its National Security branch.
Michael Schnall
VP Pedagogy
Michael's academic background in conflict transformation (PON-HLS) and passion for learning design has led him to spend the past seven years living in the Middle East working to integrate negotiation skills into formal school systems in the region.
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From founding an experiential education department in a K-12 school in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, to designing and facilitating immersive teacher education courses across North America, Africa and sub-continental Asia, Michael's experience to date leaves him optimistic about how current and future generations will navigate conflict.
Michael is most activated when engaging with like-hearted partners to re-imagine learning spaces and systems to harness what he believes is at the core of learning: play, creativity, connection, and genuine curiosity.
Naseem Khuri
Senior Consultant and Trainer
Naseem Khuri is a trainer, consultant, mediator and facilitator specializing in negotiation, influence, and conflict management. He is a senior partner at Dragonfly Partners, a senior facilitator at Vantage Partners, and a senior consultant at Oakbay Consulting and CMPartners. He is also an adjunct assistant professor of International Relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
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In the private sector, Khuri offers training and consulting services to a diverse mix of Fortune 100 clients from the manufacturing, energy, consulting and banking industries.
In the public and NGO sectors, he works with foundations, non-profit and international organizations, and government institutions; manages strategic planning processes; delivers customized negotiation and influence training; and facilitates internal change conversations and initiatives. Among his clients are international diplomats and political leaders, the U.S. State Department, U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Senate staff, human rights organizations in Northern Ireland, and the World Bank.
Previously, he was a senior advisor to the Kennedy School Negotiation Project at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), where he developed and delivered customized capacity-building workshops to mid- and high-level public sector clients in Europe and Asia, and to local government staff, military personnel, and law enforcement agencies in the United States.
Prior to that Khuri was executive director of the Dubai Initiative at HKS, where he served as a bridge between the school and the Dubai School of Government. There, he oversaw the program's budget and fellowship program, and created, developed and funded innovative research and outreach programs aimed at advancing scholarship in and increasing awareness of Middle Eastern issues at HKS.
Khuri has a master in public policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor of arts degree from Bowdoin College. He is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
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