About the Author

Charles Vogl is an author and executive consultant. He works with leaders in tech, finance, media, government, and social change organizations to make meaningful change. This work includes helping others inspire powerful connections in critical relationships. He draws from the realm of spiritual traditions to understand how individuals build loyalty, strengthen identity, and live out shared values. These principles apply to both secular and spiritual leadership. He believes that every influential leader builds a community of stakeholders and crucial relationships on whom they depend. When leaders know how to create a robust and committed community, they create relationships that are effective and resilient. These relationships deliver when needed most and create profound change.

Charles got his introduction in community building as a twenty-four-year-old full-time volunteer with a radical homeless shelter in Santa Ana, California. There he was stunned by the compassion and commitment of activists doing thankless and nauseating work in the face of seemingly overwhelming need. They could continue only by serving in community. He went on to work on rural health care access and human rights as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, where he was mostly exhausted, ineffective, and overwhelmed trying to make a difference.

It was only later as a struggling documentary filmmaker in New York that new mentors taught him the importance and philosophy of building community for change. For the first time, his work and team achieved international success. The training was critically important when he volunteered as a New York restaurant labor organizer after experiencing worker abuse himself. That campaign changed the national labor law landscape to newly empower abused restaurant workers. He went on to study leaders in political and social movements and spiritual traditions at Yale University. He guest lectures at the Yale Leadership Institute and Yale School of Management. He co-instructed the first Yale University social entrepreneurship course with Dr. Scott Sherman.

He has a BS from the USC Annenberg School and a Master of Divinity from Yale University where he studied ethics, religion, philosophy, and business. He was also named a Jesse Ball DuPont Foundation Scholar. He lives in beautiful Oakland, California, with his wife, Socheata Poeuv, and a rescued Maltese dog. In one year he also survived a plane crash, a spitting cobra attack, and acute malaria.

On most weekends he prefers making a hot meal with and for friends with a lot of laughter throughout.

You can contact him at charlesvogl.com.