Dr. Naomi Ludeman’s colleagues and clients describe her as a polished professional with a keen and creative ability to listen and then deliver relevant training and coaching programs. She customizes your training to meet your unique setting and goals while offering her 20 plus years of research and experience to pursue a measurable impact.
Committed to incorporating intercultural learning with leadership development, Naomi has worked with an array of organizations and levels of employees. She has coached and trained mid-level managers, rural and agricultural innovators and leaders, higher education customer service specialists, pastors serving in urban and suburban settings, non-profit community development stakeholders, entrepreneurial professionals, and key regional leaders in Amman, Jordan.
Ludeman Smith’s personal vision statement is to have an impact for peace and to be a champion for human dignity of all people.
Most recently Naomi designed and administered a Bush Foundation grant-based program for the non-profit Aberdeen Area Diversity Coalition in Aberdeen, SD. This community intercultural leadership development program final outcome was to develop strategies to positively come alongside the community in the midst of demographic changes with the influx of immigration laborers and families.
Active on the national stage, Ludeman Smith has been a presenter and panelist at the Shoulder to Shoulder and the Islamic Society of North America 2019 Annual Convention, Houston; the American Islamic Congress Institute for Global Engagement and the Telos Group; the Northern State University Center for International Business Annual Conference; Society for Intercultural Education, Training & Research-USA Annual Conferences; and President Obama’s White House Interfaith and Community Service Challenge Convening, Georgetown University. Recognized for her collaborative leadership and ability to bridge cultures, she participated as an invited member of the Middle East delegation to the National Prayer Breakfast in 2011, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Ludeman Smith has served as a national board member for the Society of Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR-USA) with oversite of the Professional Development offerings. She is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI), the Intercultural Conflict Styles Inventory® and the CernySmith Assessment®. She is also a Gallup trained facilitator of the Clifton StrengthsFinder.
She has been involved in community development partnerships in the U.S. and Ukraine and has lived in Jordan where she designed curriculum, won clients and trained Jordanians for Global Professionals, LLC. She has traveled, studied and directed programs in Ukraine, Ireland, New Zealand, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Paraguay, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and India.
A sought-after trainer, coach, panelist, speaker and writer, Dr. Ludeman Smith holds several degrees: an M.Ed in Educational Leadership and Curriculum Development, an M.A. in Global Studies, and a Doctorate of Ministries in Global and Contextual Leadership from Bethel University and Seminary. In addition, she earned the Intercultural Foundations and the Intercultural Practitioner certificates from the Intercultural Communication Institute where she also served as a Fellow. Ludeman Smith is ordained by the Federation of Christian Ministries for ministry as a chaplain in clinical health settings.
Her published scholarship is in the areas of intercultural training, contextual leadership development, the intersection of intercultural and worldview development and intercultural ethics. Her publications include The Spiritual Cross-Cultural Sojourn: Seeking the Sacred and Peace With Others (2008); “Preparing Professional Interculturalists for Interfaith Collaboration” in The Changing World Religion Map (Spring Publishing, Forthcoming 2014); “(Re)Considering a Critical Ethnorelative Worldview Goal and Pedagogy for Global and Biblical Demands in Christian Higher Education” in the Christian Scholars’ Review (Summer, 2013); and co-editor and contributor to Eye on Ethics: A Conversation for Intercultural Professionals” (SIETAR-USA, 2012).