Nice to meet you — I'm Roni Shalom. I grew up in a home where several cultural worlds collided at once, and I've been researching what really drives us ever since. Over two decades of independent research across the globe, all to help you step outside your own autopilot. Read the full story ←
Behind the Scenes
The Content
Every talk is tailored to its audience - general audiences, local councils and community centers, or organizations and companies. Price on request, through the contact form.
Understand why your team's 'normal' isn't universal — and how climate, history, and geography quietly wrote the rules everyone follows without noticing.
For anyone curious about what drives them — including local councils and general audiences
Walk away with a practical toolkit — high/low context, authority, hidden language — for reading any culture before you're caught off guard by it.
For anyone who wants practical tools — including organizations and managers
Experience East vs. West through real fieldwork stories — from Israel's 'everything is an emergency' culture to India's 'No Emergency' — and see your own culture from the outside for the first time.
For general audiences — an experiential, open talk for everyone
Taste how culture, history, and climate shape a nation's food and hospitality — a hands-on way to understand a people through what and how they eat.
For general audiences — an experiential, enjoyable talk
Build the cultural intelligence (CQ) that closes international deals faster — by reading trust signals your counterpart never says out loud.
For companies and salespeople too — alongside anyone interested in cross-cultural dynamics
About
Nice to meet you, I'm Roni Shalom.
I grew up in the 1980s and '90s in a home where two cultural worlds met: my father's side, a small family from Eastern Europe; my mother's side, a mosaic of Egypt, Morocco, and Iraq. Both families immigrated to Israel back in the 1920s and '30s, before the declaration of independence, but still carried entirely different cultural worlds with them. Even in my childhood apartment building, families from different communities and cultures lived door to door, ate at each other's tables, and absorbed the music drifting from the neighbor's living room — that cross-cultural encounter was simply everyday life.
That routine sparked questions that never let go: what really drives us? Is the way we perceive life, the world, and God the only possible way? And why do different cultures respond so differently to the same human challenges?
Since childhood I've been drawn to this field, which led to relentless independent research spanning over two decades now, alongside fieldwork around the world and academic studies in Middle Eastern studies, political science, Arabic language, music, and culture. Over the years I've read the field's best research, connected it, combined it, and added my own criteria and perspectives — all to better uncover the secrets that help us break out of cultural stuckness and improve our lives.
The starting point of this journey is that culture is a technology — a local, unique solution born to answer a challenge at a specific time and place. Just as a jeep is built for the terrain and a race car for the track, every culture has remarkable strengths alongside areas where it's weaker.
It all begins with a deeper understanding of ourselves. Once we identify our own cultural starting point, we open a door out of 'cultural stuckness' — simply by observing how other cultures handled the very same challenge, and picking up what already works in the field.
I invite you to join me — to broaden your range, step off autopilot, and discover a fresh, refreshing angle on the world and on yourself.
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Get in Touch
To book a talk or workshop, or for any other question. Price on request - we'll gladly tailor an offer to your audience and format.
