Karl Mackie CBE

Chief Executive

E-mail: kmackie@cedr.com

Direct dial: +44 (0) 20 7536 6010

Karl Mackie CBE - Chief Executive

Karl Mackie has been CEDR's Chief Executive since the organisation was founded in 1990. He is internationally acknowledged as one of the leading practitioners and experts in mediation and has been engaged in mediation practice since 1980. In 2010 he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to mediation.

He has mediated and facilitated cases across a rich variety of sectors of dispute with experience of parties from over 20 different countries. Karl Mackie has successfully mediated cases regarded by the parties as 'impossible' to settle, and was approached to facilitate settlement of two of the most complex cases to go through the English legal system (both cases settled after 18 months facilitation work). He mediated the first substantial Court of Appeal commercial case to go to mediation, the NRG case, and co-mediated the first UK health service group action to go to mediation, the Alder Hey retained organs litigation

A barrister and psychologist by training, Karl Mackie has been a leading academic and a partner in a business strategy consultancy before helping found CEDR. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, is on the panel of mediators/arbitrators of the UK's statutory industrial relations services, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, holds a PhD and MBA and is on the Singapore International Commercial Mediators' Panel.

Karl has been awarded an Honorary Professorship from the University of Birmingham and is Visiting Professor of ADR at the University of Westminster. He is Chair of the charity Write-Away and Deputy Chairman of the Civil Mediation Council. He has written several books on mediation and legal skills, including the recent International Mediation: The Art of Business Diplomacy (with Eileen Carroll). Karl has been described in The Lawyer magazine as one of the top 100 most influential lawyers in the UK or more prosaically by the in-house counsel of an international pharmaceutical company as 'the thinking lawyer's Sean Connery'.

Dr Karl Mackie is known internationally as a major pioneer in the development and professionalisation of ADR, as well as a leading international mediator and expert on negotiation and conflict management.  He has mediated with parties from over 30 countries including major multinationals and government agencies, and has overseen or helped deliver CEDR's strategic consultancy and training initiatives with a range of governments, civil justice ministries, legal and ADR professionals in countries as diverse as India, China, Qatar, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Trinidad, Nigeria, Pakistan. 

He has acted as an expert in European Commission developments of the Code of Conduct and Directive on Mediation, and worked with a number of international agencies such as the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, European University Institute, European Commission and others. He is on the Panel of Distinguished Neutrals of the International Institute of Conflict Prevention and Resolution in New York, and Singapore International Commercial Mediators' Panel and a co-author/editor of leading texts on international mediation including 'International Mediation - the art of business diplomacy'  and 'The EU Mediation Atlas'.  In addition to training mediators and negotiators and regular presentations to bodies such as the International Bar Association and American Bar Association, he has served as faculty on international leadership programmes for executives and corporate counsel in some of the world's largest companies and has led CEDR from a start-up organisation to one of the world's foremost centres for conflict services and expertise.

CEDR

CEDR

Making a difference