CADRE ODR has appointed Jonathan Rodrigues as Head of Mediation Services.
Rodrigues will head CADRE ODR’s Mediation Services vertical. He will build and scale an ecosystem, interweaving technology, professional mediation practice and institutional quality standards, that first-time users can navigate with ease and that businesses and institutions can rely on.
Rodrigues has more than a decade of mediation practice, advocacy and education in India and internationally. A lawyer by training, he also holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and an LL.M. in Mediation and Conflict Resolution from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. In 2015 he founded The PACT, a mediation institute, where he will continue his advocacy and education work. His appointment brings together his depth in mediation practice with CADRE ODR’s experience in building scalable online dispute resolution technology and processes.
This is the first leadership role in an Indian ODR company dedicated to process-driven online mediation.
On his appointment, Rodrigues said,
“Mediation - everyone loves the idea of it, yet no one seems to have figured out how to make it work as a sustainable practice. I believe the time for that is now. Our objective at CADRE ODR is to build mediation services that are simple enough for a first-time user, credible enough for businesses and institutions, and sophisticated enough to serve complex disputes. Technology can make mediation more accessible; professional standards will make it trusted.”
Mediation in an online or virtual context for low-value disputes has often been seen with distrust and pessimism.
“I am a sceptic myself,” said Rodrigues, “as the challenge lies in balancing international best practices in mediation, local laws, industry norms – and, what the clients want. However, with an agile engineering team, an accountable institutional framework, we can make mediation an affordable and accessible service, no matter the monetary value of the dispute.”
Kanchan Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, CADRE ODR, said,
“There is strong institutional support for mediation, in India and globally, but access to trusted, user-centric mediation is still lacking. We created this role because we believe mediation should be accessible to everyone, and that technology combined with professional practice is how we get there. Jonathan has spent a decade making the case for mediation. Now we want to make it the default choice by building the infrastructure for it.”
Rajneesh Jaswal, Co-Founder at CADRE ODR, added,
“We are committed about making ‘ODR For Everyone’ a reality; and, therefore, adding mediation to our existing portfolio of conciliation and arbitration services was a no-brainer. Now, parties in a dispute can avail of a complete, all-services experience, where they choose their preferred choice of process for a speedy resolution.”