BondiDNA / About
The work behind BondiDNA.
We study the conditions that shape what it means to remain human.
BondiDNA grew from years spent close to consequential decisions, complex organisations and people navigating change. The questions raised there reach well beyond professional life.
This work matters because the way we understand human capacity affects how we treat people, what we expect of them, and what we make possible together.
01 / The experience
Built where decisions mattered.
BondiDNA was founded by Shiva Movahedi after more than two decades working across global technology organisations, including Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco.
Her work spanned senior strategy and operations, complex commercial decisions, organisational restructurings and urgent operational situations where the consequences reached well beyond the meeting. Working across four continents brought different cultures, pressures and assumptions into view.
Her background crosses art, engineering, business strategy and the study of human wellbeing. It brings together systems thinking, the realities of organisational responsibility and an enduring curiosity about what happens to people beyond the workplace.
02 / Commitment
A deliberate commitment.
Leaving a long corporate career was a deliberate decision. BondiDNA became a way to give this inquiry sustained attention—through research, writing, carefully developed training experiences and public conversation.
The approach is deliberately careful: real experience matters, evidence matters, and unanswered questions deserve to remain open. The aim is not to offer another quick explanation for what people do, but to take the human consequences seriously.
03 / The work today
Explore the work.
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04 / The name
Why Bondi?
Bondi Beach, Sydney
For years, I lived in Bondi.
Most mornings began the same way: walking to the shoreline before work and watching the surfers waiting for the next set.
Some mornings there was almost no separation between the waves, the light, and the people moving through them.
Watching them, a question began to return.
What if we lose this?
Not the beach. Not surfing.
The human capacity to be present enough to experience life so completely.
That question stayed. Bondi became part of the name, and part of the reason to keep asking.