Grande Lum

Co-Founder & Senior Advisor

Experience

Grande Lum is a co-founder and a Senior Advisor at Accordence, Inc. and a Senior Partner at Rebuild Congress Initiative, a program of the Harvard Negotiation Project and Issue One, that creates opportunities for cross-partisan stakeholders to explore and act on the conditions necessary to strengthen Congress and our democratic institutions and ensure a resilient America. Prior to RCI, Grande Lum was the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Menlo College in Atherton, California. Before joining Menlo, he was Director of the Divided Community Project (DCP) at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. In addition, Mr. Lum is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at Law at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Advisor for Nextdoor. He served as Director of the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service (CRS), nominated by President Obama and confirmed unanimously by the US Senate. Mr. Lum guided CRS through prominent conflicts between law enforcement and race during his tenure, including addressing communities after tragedies in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to this position, he was director of the US Small Business Administration Historically Underutilized Business Zone Program, running a $8 billion annual federal contracting program. Mr. Lum previously held the post of Clinical Professor and Director of the Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at University of California Hastings College of the Law. 

He consults and advises clients regarding complex transactions and relationships regarding decision-making and leadership. Organizations with which Mr. Lum has worked include Eli Lilly, Charles Schwab, Amgen, Hewlett Packard, World Bank, and the Red Cross. His strategy advising work is focused on social media and other tech startups.

Mr. Lum is author of the books, The Negotiation Fieldbook (McGraw-Hill 2nd ed. 2010), Tear Down the Wall – Be Your Own Mediator in Conflict (Optimality Press 2012) and America’s Peacemakers: The Community Relations Service and Civil Rights (University of Missouri Press, 2020. Co-authored with Bertram Levine). 

Education

B.A. Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Berkeley

J.D. from Harvard Law School