Fiorella Larissa Erni – From Conflict Zones to Corporate Strategy

Fiorella Larissa Erni built her career in places most people would never choose to enter. For over a decade, she worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross across the Middle East and Africa, negotiating access to conflict zones where lives hung in the balance. These were environments defined by instability, shifting power structures, and extreme risk. A single miscalculation could have fatal consequences.

In these high-stakes contexts, Fiorella developed an approach to negotiation grounded in preparation, clarity, and deep understanding of human behaviour. She learned how to read a room where trust was fragile, how to communicate across cultural and political divides, and how to secure agreements under pressure few business leaders will ever experience.

She does not teach theory detached from reality. She teaches what works when everything is on the line.

Head of Operations and Global Negotiation Authority

After her field assignments, Fiorella became Head of Operations at the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation. In this role, she trained humanitarian workers and diplomats to navigate complex, high-pressure negotiations. Her work focused on equipping professionals to operate in volatile environments, manage risk, and achieve access in situations where conventional approaches failed.

Today, she continues to shape the global conversation on negotiation. She is a Senior Fellow at the Institute on Global Negotiation, teaches at HEC Paris, one of Europe’s most respected business schools, and contributes thought leadership to IMD. Her insights bridge the gap between humanitarian diplomacy and corporate decision-making, offering leaders a rare perspective grounded in both arenas.

Professional Negotiator for High-Pressure Deals

As an affiliate of Negotiated Resolutions, Fiorella steps directly into the room as a professional negotiator for clients facing complex and high-pressure deals. She works alongside leadership teams when outcomes matter deeply, whether navigating sensitive partnerships, internal crises, or critical external negotiations.

Her training programmes go beyond frameworks and slides. Participants learn how to regulate themselves under stress, read power dynamics accurately, and act decisively. She focuses on how people show up when stakes are high: how they communicate, how they listen, how they hold their ground, and how they move conversations forward without escalating conflict.

Audiences leave with practical tools and a sharpened awareness of their own negotiation patterns. The result is not just better deals, but stronger leadership presence.

Founder and CEO – Negotiating for Conscious Luxury

Fiorella is also the founder and CEO of Cheetah Stories SA, an emerging luxury high-heel brand built on her vision of conscious luxury. In this venture, she negotiates daily with suppliers, partners, and stakeholders to ensure that elegance and ethics can coexist.

Her entrepreneurial journey adds another dimension to her keynotes. She understands the pressures of building a brand, leading teams, and balancing commercial ambition with values. She demonstrates that negotiation is not only about closing deals, it is about shaping the future you want to build.

An Unconventional Academic Foundation

Fiorella’s academic background reflects the depth and breadth of her thinking. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and Arabic Literature from the University of Zurich and a Master’s in Conflict and Development Studies from the Graduate Institute in Geneva. She later completed an MBA in Hospitality Management at the École Hôtelière de Lausanne.

She also earned a Diploma in Animal Behaviour from the University of Oxford. While unexpected, this qualification strengthens her negotiation philosophy. Understanding instinct, hierarchy, and survival behaviour offers powerful insight into human dynamics. Under pressure, people revert to patterns rooted in fear, status, and self-preservation. Fiorella helps leaders recognise and manage these instincts rather than be controlled by them.

Book Fiorella Larissa Erni for Your Event

When you book Fiorella Larissa Erni for your event, you bring in a speaker who has operated in the arena and continues to do so. Her keynotes are direct, engaging, and deeply practical. She shares lessons from conflict zones, global institutions, boardrooms, and entrepreneurship, always anchored in lived experience.

She speaks on themes such as:

• High-stakes negotiation and decision-making under pressure

• Leadership in uncertainty and volatile environments

• Power dynamics, trust, and influence

• Conscious leadership and ethical ambition

• Human behaviour in moments of risk

Fiorella Larissa Erni challenges audiences to rethink what negotiation truly means. It is not manipulation or tactics. It is clarity under pressure. It is courage in conversation. It is the ability to create movement where others see deadlock.

For organisations facing complexity, transformation, or critical negotiations, her insights offer both strategic advantage and human depth. She teaches negotiation from the field and she is still in the arena.