Danielle Shani (Ph.D) co-founded BeDo – Generating Change, Differently, together with Yael Bar-Lev (Ph.D), to promote leaders who will operate from a place of awareness and effective listening, spearheading new ways to deal with the grave challenges faced by Israeli society. Theory U is at the core of BeDo’s work which includes training programs for directors and individuals in influential positions; guidance for directors, teams and organizations, helping them face specific challenges and undertake strategic processes of change and renewal; workshops focused on practical U-based tools; knowledge creation; and unique projects for implementation of Theory U in dealing with the challenges of living in a diverse society.

In an effort to bring Theory U to the Israeli public, BeDo also published “The Essentials of Theory U” in Hebrew, and is organizing the first Theory U conference in Israel in January 2023, with Otto Scharmer as the guest of honor. 
 
Before founding BeDo, Danielle was the executive director of aChord: Social Psychology for Social Change at Hebrew University (previously based at IDC, Herzliya) and the founder and director of the Mandel Center for Leadership in the North, which promotes social and educational leadership in Arab and Jewish localities in Israel's periphery. Danielle holds MA and PhD degrees in political science from Princeton University. For her doctoral work, she researched the origins of citizens' motivation for political participation. Her dissertation won Best Dissertation in Political Psychology by the American Political Science Association. Danielle also earned a BA in philosophy and political science and an MA in political philosophy, both Summa Cum Laude, from Tel Aviv University. She was a Schusterman Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Scholars program at Princeton University, and the winner of the Israeli Parliament award for exceptional academic achievements. Previously she worked at the Israel Democracy Institute where she led the first Israeli Democracy Index project. A journalist for almost a decade, she was head of the news desk at the widely spread national newspaper, Yediot Acharonot, and served as a political correspondent, news editor and broadcaster on Galei-Tzahal radio station.