ALF Silicon Valley is passionately committed to building diverse networks of leaders focused on personal and community transformation in order to create an inclusive and thriving Silicon Valley.

History of ALF

American Leadership Forum was founded in 1980 on the premise that investing in diverse, cross-sector leaders and putting them in relationship with each other – to expand their perspectives and empathy of different experiences – could help create a more equitable and thriving society. Our founder, Joe Jaworski, made dialogue across differences and unconscious bias cornerstones of the curriculum from day one. He lays out this objective of ALF as follows:

“Build deep trust and respect among the group, and help each Fellow get beyond the devaluing prejudices that we all hold. Foster an experience of how a group of leaders, from many different sectors in a community, can coalesce around issues of shared concern and move to successful resolution.”

American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley builds upon that foundation by putting diversity, inclusion and equity at the foundation of our organization. When we assemble teams – whether they be staff, board members, Fellows classes or network gatherings – we design for maximum diversity. For ALF, achieving maximum diversity means not creating silos or “choirs,” but instead bringing leaders from divergent perspectives together to build bridges of understanding across difference through dialogue with deep listening and honest sharing. Leveraging ALF dialogue strategies and expertise in creating impactful convenings, we aim to curate the conditions for learning and empathy by engaging people with a wide variety of experiences and points of view through diversity in age, ethnicity, race, gender and sexual orientation, political orientation, religion, socioeconomic background, and sector. If we are creating and designing relationship building and problem-solving curriculum and containers for the “community,” then it is imperative that “community” be at the table.