Dominic AA Randolph
My Background
Dominic A.A. Randolph is an educator, writer, artist, and entrepreneur focused on a simple but enduring question:
How do we help people think in ways that allow them to thrive?
Across his work, the focus has been less on delivering answers,
and more on shaping the conditions in which better thinking can happen.
He served as the sixth Head of Riverdale Country School from 2007 to 2023, and previously as Assistant Head Master at The Lawrenceville School. In both settings, his work centered on translating ideas about humandevelopment into everyday practice.
In 2007, he convened a collaboration with Martin Seligman to explore how insights from positive psychology could be applied in schools.
His subsequent work with KIPP and the University of Pennsylvania on character development contributed to a broader shift in how educators think about growth and potential—later reflected in How Children Succeed.
This led to the founding of Character Lab, alongside Angela Duckworth and David Levin—an effort to bring research on character into real-world environments.
His leadership at Riverdale has also been highlighted in Most Likely to Succeed.
Along the way, he has helped shape a range of initiatives—from work with IDEO that contributed to the Teachers Guild, to ventures such as the Purpose Project, NXU, and Delta Global School in Hanoi—all oriented around how people learn, grow, and find direction.
Across these efforts, a pattern emerged:
Better outcomes did not come from better answers alone,
but from better thinking—
how people pause, frame questions, decide, and relate to one another.
Threave grows out of that insight.
It is a simple protocol—philosophical, digital, and experiential—
designed to shape what happens in the moments before we act.
Over time, those moments compound.
Clarity improves.
Agency strengthens.
A different way of moving through work and life becomes possible.
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Dominic has served on the boards of The Lawrenceville School, Robert College, Character Lab, the Mastery Transcript Consortium, the Guild of Independent Schools of New York City, I-Think, and as Global Chair of the International Positive Education Network.
[Learn more about Threave →]