Dr. Richard Claydon

Co-founder

Hi, I’m Richard. I was awarded the highest achievable marks for a PhD in behavioural science. A Harvard Top-200 Management expert and business columnists for the Guardian newspaper have described this research as “a touchstone for the future work in management and organisation”, “outstanding in daring imagination” and “at the forefront of modern discussion and debate.”

Peers and colleagues have described my work as “bleeding edge … in another league altogether”, “iconoclastic”, and “eloquently expressing a real and relevant way of living out life.”

I’m the founder of roundPegz, a community of disruptive thinkers operating and a founder-member of The Prometheus Project, a group of international leadership experts disrupting the leadership development market.

My MBA module on the “Future of Leadership” for Macquarie Business School's online GMBA (ranked #6 in the world by CEO Magazine) is one of the highest-rated fully-accredited leadership modules on the Coursera learning platform.

I’m a tier one tennis player, has coached tennis professionally, and also designed the tactics creator for the multi award-winning and world-leading management simulation, Football Manager.

Oscar Venhuis

Co-founder

I’m a serial entrepreneur transforming complex ideas into commercial products and scalable services through the application of Business Design, an emergent design-doing discipline that operates in the whitespace of three interconnected domains; organisational design, business strategies and innovation methods. 

Nike, Adidas, UBS, Star Wars, WWF and Asia Society are just a few international brands that I have developed commercial services and products for.

Prior to EQ Lab, I co-founded theDesk, a successful co-working workspace in Asia. My unorthodox approach to the workplace was recognised with a merit from Design For Asia and a Golden Pin Design Award.

I have a BA in Art & Design (NL), studied at the Royal College of Art in London that is ranked globally #1 for creativity and completed a MA in Business Design Management (distinction, UK).

For General Assembly I have produced hundreds of seminars and was the first instructor at GA to deliver UX Design workshops entirely remotely across the APAC region.

I host and produce ‘The Last Supper’, a top 10 ranked weekly podcast about art in Asia featuring artists, gallerists, curators and collectors.

Graham Barkus

Chief Health Officer (CHO)

I'm a New Zealand-born and Hong Kong-based workplace health psychologist. I take a systemic, integrative approach that helps clients clear the path between ‘resolve and results’ and achieve better outcomes, faster – individually and collectively.

My work draws upon 25 years of experience leading executive and organisational change in employment and consultancy roles across Asia and globally, across boundaries of structure, culture, interests and habits.

I’ve worked across diverse industries including aviation, banking and finance, biotech, engineering consultancy, FMCG, healthcare, insurance, logistics and real estate development. I frequently collaborate with top-tier universities – from business schools to medical schools - to bridge leading-edge theory and research to the real-world, real-time considerations of practice in diverse, multicultural environments.

Academically, I hold postgraduate degrees with distinctions in Clinical Organizational Psychology (INSEAD); Strategy & Innovation (University of Oxford), and an LLM in Arbitration and Dispute Resolution from the University of Hong Kong. I’m also a certified executive and health coach; lifestyle medicine facilitator and qualified mediator, and a Founding Fellow at the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate.