Rich Tafel

Rich Tafel has spent his career bringing together coalitions of unlikely partners to address some of the most significant challenges of our time. Based on his experiences, he created the Cultural Translator training, designed to help participants improve their ability to understand different perspectives, navigate high-conflict challenges, and achieve sustainable results. He brings to his work a diverse background, having served in government, as an advocate, and as a community builder.

Over the past three years, Rich has shared his models with over a thousand senior business, military, nonprofit, and government leaders. In 2023, he served as the keynote speaker at the Society of Human Resource Management’s INCLUSION Conference, where he presented to two thousand Human Resources leaders in the business community.

As a Senior Fellow at George Washington University, Rich has worked with over a thousand senior SES-level government leaders, enhancing their coalition-building skills across a diverse workforce. In 2024, he conducted his first international training with democracy advocates from Israel.

In the social entrepreneurship space, Rich helped facilitate the nation’s first statewide social venture competitions in Michigan and co-founded the Workplace Wellness Council of Mexico. He also served as the Director of Raffa’s Social Capital Advisors, where he matched investors with social ventures.

As an advocate, Rich worked in the public policy arena, assembling diverse coalitions to achieve historic civil rights and healthcare breakthroughs in the United States and worldwide. He served as Adolescent Health Director for the state of Massachusetts and taught as an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. He also played a strategic role in the creation of PEPFAR.

Rich is currently the pastor at the Church of the Holy City in Washington, DC. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he has led Christian-Muslim dialogues on behalf of the National Council of Churches and previously served as Assistant Pastor at Harvard’s Memorial Church.

A champion for civil society, Rich chairs the board of Citizen University, where he teaches young leaders the power of civic engagement, and he co-founded the American Project at Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

In 2021, he became a Senior Fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership.
Rich is the author of Party Crasher and contributed a chapter to the award-winning book, How to Heal Our Divides: A Practical Guide.