In a world that has become more fluent than ever in conflict and appallingly inarticulate in resolution, Alice Shikina has structured her work of life around one, radically unconventional premise: that in any conflict, however ingrained, there is the architecture of an agreement. A leader of the Shikina Negotiation Academy, a popular public speaker, mediator, and negotiation coach, she has spent decades transforming that belief into action, one difficult conversation at a time.
Her qualifications are as fascinating as her journey. Alice, the daughter of Okinawan immigrants who settled in southern Louisiana, was a classical actor in training, competed in speech on a national scale, studied theatre in Czechoslovakia and finally developed a career in mediation, corporate negotiation coaching and conflict resolution. In 2025, she received the Raymond Shonholtz Visionary Peacemaker Award, one of the most notable awards in the discipline. In 2026, Alice was a Toastmasters Golden Gavel Award nominee.
What distinguishes her is the rare quality of someone who has lived with enough intention that even the unexpected chapters read, in retrospect, like they were always part of the plan.
From Okinawa to Oakland: A Life Shaped by Movement
Alice’s parents immigrated from Okinawa, Japan, arriving in the United States just months before she was born. When she turned five, the family relocated to southern Louisiana, where she grew up as the eldest of four children. From early on, she moved to the beat of her own drum. At seven, she declared she wanted to become an actress. At thirteen, she auditioned at a local community theatre and earned the role of Lucy in the musical Snoopy. It was a small stage, but it confirmed her passion for theatre.
By high school, she had channeled that same energy into the speech team, competing nearly every weekend. As a sophomore, she began winning regional competitions in dramatic interpretation and poetry, and earned admission to The Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, one of the few public residential schools in the United States. She enrolled as a junior, majored in theatre, and in her very first year was cast as the lead in The Madwoman of Chaillot.
She went on to Miami University, majoring in acting, and in her senior year enrolled in a study-abroad program in Czechoslovakia, immersing herself in theatre history and the Czech language. When the program ended, she stayed to teach English for two additional years, deepening her love for cross-cultural communication. While she was teaching Czech students English, she herself became fluent in the Czech language. She later pursued graduate studies in directing in Honolulu before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, the region that would become the home of her most consequential work. “Peace is not only something negotiated between nations; it is something we practice in our everyday interactions,” she notes. Those years of crossing borders, cultures, and languages were quietly building the foundation for exactly that.
Finding Her Calling: The Road to Mediation
Before building the practice, she leads today, Alice spent nearly a decade as a graphic designer at the American Red Cross. After stepping away from design, she drove part-time for Lyft while reconsidering her direction. The pivot arrived unexpectedly. While searching for a school for her children, she came across a start-up school in San Francisco. She applied for her kids to attend. Not only did she enroll her kids there, she ended up getting a job offer as well. She spent the next three years in the San Francisco start-up world, sharpening her instincts for strategy and relationship-building. When that role ended, it was her partner who redirected her attention, observing that she had a rare and consistent talent for mediating disputes.
Until that conversation, Alice had assumed mediation was the exclusive domain of lawyers. A quick search proved otherwise. “I got certified for both mediation and arbitration and started my business,” she recalls. Several years in, she expanded to include negotiation coaching, and the Shikina Negotiation Academy was born. “I like to think of my contribution as bringing more peace to the world, one conflict at a time,” she says, and coming from Alice Shikina, it sounds less like a mission statement and more like a deeply personal intention.
Building the Academy: Purpose Meets Entrepreneurship
Alice has always carried the heart of an entrepreneur. Before her current success, she made earlier attempts at ventures that did not pan out; each one sharpened her resilience and refining her understanding of what sustainable business-building truly requires. She regards those experiences not as failures, but as essential preparation.
“What I enjoy most about entrepreneurship is the challenge of building something from the ground up,” she explains. “There is something incredibly rewarding about starting with an idea and turning it into a functioning, growing business.” Alongside that intellectual appetite runs a genuine love for people. She describes herself as a natural connector, a hub through which individuals, ideas, and opportunities find each other. That quality has proven to be among the most valuable assets in building a practice that depends entirely on trust. The freedom that business ownership affords her, to design her own schedule, travel on her own terms, and work remotely from anywhere, is not a lifestyle preference. It is alignment, a life lived in accordance with the very values she espouses.
Navigating the Pandemic: A Pivot That Became a Strength
When COVID-19 made in-person gatherings impossible, Alice moved all her mediations online through Zoom. The initial skepticism from clients was understandable. Mediation is an intimate process, and many doubted whether a screen could carry the same weight of trust and presence as a shared room. The reality proved otherwise.
Clients no longer had to travel. Scheduling became more flexible. Participants engaged from familiar environments, which often made them more relaxed and forthcoming. She states, “What initially felt like a temporary solution soon revealed itself to be a long-term opportunity. The pandemic accelerated a broader acceptance of virtual communication.” Today, Alice operates exclusively through online mediation, not as a concession, but as a deliberate professional standard. Her practice did not merely survive the pandemic. It emerged from it more streamlined and more accessible than before.
The Philosophy of Peace: What Drives Alice Forward
At the heart of everything Alice does is a commitment to peace, not as an abstract ideal, but as a daily, actionable practice. It begins, she argues, with internal work: the willingness to examine one’s own patterns, heal what has not healed, and resist the impulse to pass hurt forward. It extends outward through the quality of one’s listening, and the grace extends to those who see the world differently.
“In a time when differences can easily divide us, choosing curiosity over judgment and seeking common ground can transform relationships,” she asserts. “It might not always be easy, but it is powerful.” In the mediation room, she creates conditions in which parties who arrived in opposition locate, often with surprise, the common ground that was always there. Through negotiation training, she equips clients with frameworks to navigate difficult conversations without defaulting to defensiveness. She sees the work as a ripple effect; each resolved conflict quietly opening space for greater understanding in the lives of everyone it touches.
Strength, Self-Awareness, and the Art of Balance
Alice identifies emotional intelligence as her foremost professional strength, the ability to listen at depth, hold space for conflicting perspectives, and build trust swiftly even in charged environments. She does not merely practice healthy communication; she teaches it, which has made her sharper, more consistent, and more credible as both a practitioner and educator.
She is equally candid about her limitations. “I also see that I may occasionally undervalue my work, as my focus is often on helping others rather than maximizing profit,” she admits. Her instinct for harmony, so valuable in the mediation room, can sometimes make harder internal decisions more challenging than they need to be. Balance, for Alice, is not a destination. “I don’t know if balance is something I ever truly achieve in a perfect or lasting sense,” she reflects, “but it is absolutely a practice that I commit to every single day.” She schedules everything that matters, workouts, violin practice, sleep, alongside client appointments, because structure, she has learned, is what makes genuine freedom possible.
A Life Fully Lived: Achievements Beyond the Boardroom
Alice Shikina refuses to be defined by a single dimension. She plays the violin in a local community orchestra, rows with a dedicated crew, and competes with the seriousness of someone for whom challenge is a native language. In 2024, she completed the Waikiki Rough Water Swim, a 3.3-mile open-ocean race in Honolulu. In 2011, she placed first in her age group in the Alcatraz Decathlon. In 2013, she entered a National Muay Thai Kickboxing Tournament.
She is also an accomplished writer. Her play Okinawa 1945 has been produced in San Francisco, across Oahu, and at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. She authored Negotiating with Your Kids and is preparing to release Don’t Sleep on the Couch: Winning More Arguments without Losing Your Marriage, with a third negotiation book already underway. Her service record is equally deliberate: she volunteer mediates for the Department of Police Accountability in San Francisco, belongs on mediator panels for the Community Police Review Agency in Oakland, Conflict Intervention Services, and Alameda County. Alice has served the San Francisco Unified School District, the Bar Association of San Francisco, and the Superior Court of California. She states, “Success, to me, is not just achievement. It is creating meaningful impact, fostering connection, and bringing more peace into every space I enter.”
The Road Ahead
Alice Shikina is not finished chasing dreams. She is at an inflection point, the kind that comes from having built enough momentum to move faster and farther than before. Her books carry her ideas into homes and workplaces no single speaking engagement could reach. Her platforms continue to grow in proportion to the urgency of the work itself.
“Lead with purpose, listen with intention, and act with integrity,” she says. It is her mantra, and it is, by every measure, how she has lived.
