Who we are
Dr Gordana Kierans – Managing Director
I was raised on a farm — surrounded by life.
Then I studied economics. And in economics, life had value only as a commodity. Only after it was killed.
For a long time, I thought those two worlds could never be reconciled.
Then came the circular economy. A model that finally made sense — where value comes from keeping things alive, in use, in the cycle.
I have taught it as a professor in Shenzhen. I oversee it on the Supervisory Board of Circle Economy in Amsterdam. More than thirteen thousand students have learned it through my Udemy course
And today, with MGT OPEN, I help leaders build it into strategies that hold up — in the boardroom, and in the market.
I am Gordana Kierans.
Gerry T. Kierans – Co-Founder
Every five years, I change my life on purpose.
I have done it more than five times now, which makes the plan itself my longest career. Five years with the Canadian government. Five as a high school History teacher. Two five-year plans co-founding what became a very successful restaurant chain across British Columbia. Another five running a textile company I bought in the British Virgin Islands, where I worked for, you guessed it, five years. And then Germany, where I co-founded MGT OPEN, the management training and coaching company I have now been building for five five-year plans in a row.
It began in Montreal, where I was born and studied Urban Planning, and where I learned the thing that connects every chapter since: careers are designed, not endured.
That is what I have taught, one way or another, for forty years.
In Germany, my coaching and training clients included the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Commerzbank, Allianz, DHL and Deutsche Telekom, and further afield Petronas and Sarawak Energy, among others. My work has always centred on the moment a leader has to stand up and be believed: communication, leadership, and the pitch on which everything depends.
I have prepared executives for some of the most senior appointments in European finance, and entrepreneurs for the funding rounds that made their companies real. The stakes differ; the craft does not. A sharp message, honestly delivered, carried by a person the room can trust.
Across every chapter, the common denominator has been the same: to teach, train, motivate and inspire others.
These days I take on only a handful of engagements a year: an executive facing a defining speech, a board appointment, or a moment of public scrutiny, who needs a sharp message and a steady hand.
I am Gerry T. Kierans.
One of us learned it on a farm, the other in five-year plans: what matters doesn’t survive by accident. It’s designed, cultivated, and renewed. That’s what we do with leaders and organisations. Let’s talk.
