John Stubley is a program and narrative designer specialising in awareness-based systems change programs. He works with imagination, metaphor and narrative to help systems to see and sense their current reality, and to shift to preferred, alternative, emerging futures.

He currently works at the Centre for Social Impact at the University of Western Australia (UWA), where he is part of the community engagement team, working on various programs including The Social Impact Festival: Danjoo Koorliny Walking Together Towards 2029 and Beyond - an initiative led by local Aboriginal Elders towards a better Western Australia for all.

He is part of the faculty and core team for the ELIAS WA program - a cross-sector, collaborative, awareness-based systems-change program for senior leaders in Western Australia (in partnership with the the Pesencing Institute, the Academy for Systems Change and Curtin University Sustainability and Policy Institute). He is also part of the core-team and faculty for the Asia-Pacific Presencing Foundation Program (PFP), in partnership with the Presencing Institute.

Some of his work also involves collaborations with the Presencing Institute on programs occurring globally, including in Asia, Europe and North America. He has been working with other social arts practitioners during the Ecosystem Leadership Program (ELP) in Berlin, where he has been holding the social poetics stream - a way of working collectively with imagination and metaphor - which he continues to develop during the ELP and elsewhere around the world.

John has previously worked at an international research centre in Switzerland where, for three years, he was part of a core team supporting a global network of awareness-based social entrepreneurs. While there he also undertook a three-year study in awareness-based systems change, specifically exploring its relationship to narrative, metaphor and imagination.

John’s writing has been published around the world in various media, and been translated into several languages. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature (Creative Writing) from Murdoch University, a Masters in Narrative Community Work from the University of Melbourne, a first-class Honours in English (Creative Writing) from UWA, a BA in English (Journalism and Creative Writing) from Curtin University, a three-year certificate of individual study in language and systems change, and various qualifications in the health sciences.