Bhutan on the search of Wellbeing: How the principles of Gross National Happiness enable inner and outer growth

Christiane Schicker

About Christiane Schicker: As a manager and executive in more than 20 years in corporate companies and in the media & advertising context Christiane was always driven by the passion for collaborative transformation to enable personal and organizational growth. Since 2019 she has initiated her most relevant personal change to translate her professional experience and passions into a new role as agent for change and for inner and outer growth and as advocate for Gross National Happiness. The latter has been inspired and deeply rooted by multiple journeys to Bhutan since 2014, by deep personal relationships with local Bhutanese and through an educational journey about leadership principles based on the holistic GNH approach.

Lyonpo Norbu Wangchuk

About Lyonpo Norbu Wangchuk: Norbu Wangchuk is the former Education Minister of the Royal Government of Bhutan. As a passionate educationist, presently he is engaged in empowering younger generations on emotional wellbeing by organizing workshops and training programs. He also spends his time engaging the corporate world in Mindfulness Meditation as a core business strategy for the 21st century economy.

As the Minister for Education, Norbu Wangchuk led the initiative to reform Bhutan’s education. The reform targeted on aligning the school curriculum to the needs of the 21st century with special focus on emotional wellbeing and Bhutanese values. Teacher development also received a major impetus under the education reform initiated during his tenure as the education minister.

As an ardent academician, Mr. Norbu wrote and published several papers such as Gross National Happiness – the practice and the philosophy; Globalization – a challenge to Gross national Happiness. He also developed the curriculum for Educating for Gross National happiness which was implemented in all the schools in Bhutan.

Norbu Wangchuk has co-founded the premier training Institution for Management Studies Ltd. (IMSL). Today IMSL offers training and conducts studies on capacity development needs of the country. With keen interest in facilitating and conducting training, Norbu Wangchuk conducted several national and regional training programs on leadership with special focus on Mindfulness and emotional intelligence.