Aaron Quinn

Aaron spent the first twenty years of his career in advertising, media and communications. As a Managing Partner within one of the world’s largest advertising groups, he led people and businesses across China, India, Russia, Turkey and other wonderfully complicated places.

By most conventional measures, things were going rather well.

That was the problem.

Aaron began to suspect that the next promotion might take him further away from the things he actually cared about. Eventually, curiosity overcame caution and he left.

There was no grand plan.

What followed included travelling across Asia by bus and train, joining a start-up in Sydney, developing workshops in Hong Kong and conducting a number of experiments in living that made considerably more sense in retrospect than they did at the time.

Along the way came a handful of encounters, teachers, wrong turns and fortunate accidents that gradually changed the questions he was asking.

Aaron trained as a mindfulness-based executive coach and facilitator with the Asian Leadership Institute in Thailand, later becoming a partner in the organisation.

Since then, he has worked with leaders and teams from organisations including WPP, Nike, LinkedIn, Bayer, Uber, Citibank, FIFA and Danone, alongside founders building young companies across Asia.

But credentials are not really the most interesting thing about Aaron. Although, having accumulated them, it seems rude not to mention them.

He is curious about the moment when the story someone has been telling about their life no longer quite fits. He has little interest in telling people what they should do next. He is much more interested in helping them notice what they already know but have not yet found the courage—or perhaps the quiet—to hear.

Friends describe him as curious, loyal, direct and unexpectedly funny.

On one retreat he acquired the nickname Sniper, for his tendency to remain silent for quite a long time before offering one short observation that changed the conversation.

His favourite word is wonder.

He lives on the Greek island of Aegina, where Laughing Heart began, not far from an orphanage built in 1828.

There is a story behind that too.

Aaron has several stories. Not all of them are short.