Negotiation specialist and Solution Focused coach

London School of Economics (LSE) graduate Melissa Davies has held operational and strategic management positions in several international and national companies before becoming an international consultant. Her fields are organizational development, partnership brokering and negotiations, people development (self leadership and capacity building) and project management.

Melissa is an independent professional negotiator who founded Negoservices Sàrl in 2000. With over 30 years’ experience in negotiating agreements and building lasting partnerships in varied environments, she trains in negotiation skills and conflict management. Customers include academia, scientific research institutes, the private sector (multi-nationals and SME) as well as non-profit organizations. Her book The Practical Negotiation Handbook A Five Step Approach to Lasting Partnerships was published in 2021 and has been translated into several languages. Melissa also specializes in self-leadership skills so as to positively influence our relationships with others, including how to “be” (posture) in conflicting situations and in negotiations.
A qualified Solution Focused coach, Melissa helps people and organizations in their professional and personal development to better face their challenges and to get to where they want to be. Melissa intervenes in several European programs for women leaders in science. She also has a long experience in coaching teenagers and young adults, as well as working with scientists (PhDs, Postdocs, Gls/PIs).

In 2022, Melissa was selected as one of the Career Women’s Forum top 40 inspiring women who have been active in the professional, political, and social fields in the French speaking part of Switzerland these last 40 years.

Melissa is passionate about mountains, nature and wildlife conservation. Member of two mountaineering clubs, she is very active with teenagers and young adults. Melissa is interested in sustainable development and social issues; she volunteered for several years as a senior partnerships officer for Norlha, a grass roots NGO involved in sustainable development projects and empowering women in the Himalayas. She also volunteered in 2022 in Bidibidi, a refugee settlement in Northern Uganda, working on conflict transformation, negotiation and positive deviance. In 2023, 2024 and 2025 she volunteered in Gonarezhou National Park (Zimbabwe) working with the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust management team on political and wildlife negotiations, capacity building and solution focuses conflict management techniques.

Christine Karlsson has a background in medical sciences with a PhD in stem cell biology and two decades of experience in academia and higher education. With a passion for developing researcher talent and fostering research communities through capacity building, she designs initiatives at Lund University that strengthen academic cultures and promote cultural change. These initiatives align professional identity, personal growth, and institutional values in a human-centered way.

As an ICF-certified coach and Mental Health First Aid instructor, Christine supports early-career researchers and academic leaders by providing training and coaching in self-leadership, academic well-being, and workplace relationships. Her holistic approach to coaching focuses on professional identity and personal growth.

Christine attended Melissa’s workshop several years ago, and their shared approaches and values led them to collaborate on delivering self-leadership trainings.

Her other interests

Christine loves spending time outdoors and enjoys all kinds of sports, with a special passion for handball. One of her favourite places in the world is her family’s cottage in the woods of southern Sweden, where she reconnects with nature and herself.

Born and raised in Eastern Germany, Christine has lived in Lund, Sweden, for over 20 years with her husband, their two teenage daughters, and two bunnies.