Jean-Paul Tostee

My professional background and experience is as vast as the places I have lived in, providing me with a globally broad-minded way of seeing and dealing with various situations. The core of my professional experience is in the real estate and property development field, which has spanned 16 years of my life. I have had various roles ranging from a residential sales negotiator to a sales, marketing and development executive for a 500 hectare smart city property development in Mauritius. Along with my real estate background, I have had significant exposure and worked in the banking and hospitality sectors for over a decade. Working in these two industries has given me significant insight into the finance and hospitality world, while the years of negotiating and executive responsibilities in the property arena have provided me with a real understanding of this unique, competitive and often intricate environment.

On top of my professional experience, I have a qualified passion for the wine industry and am a long-distance open water swimmer, who occasionally swims for environmental causes, and am a member of several sporting clubs.

I believe that this blend of activities and experience really offers the perfect platform for me to objectively see the world through different lenses. I also believe that this benefits me in a unique way when it comes to mediation. I do not come from a legal background, so am not set in an advisory frame of operating. When it comes to negotiating you must be able to listen in order to achieve a mutual agreement between parties. I believe those skills have stood me in good stead for mediating, while being completely non-partisan is, I know, the only way of getting much closer to an outcome in mediation. I like to think of it as being the "village elder" and getting parties to a point of communication and agreement amongst themselves through open and private discussion, while getting to the real core of what each participant truly desires.

My mediation style is facilitative, and I gained accreditation through the LSM (London School of Mediation) in 2025. This is recognised by the IMI

• International Mediation Institute. What led me to mediation and becoming qualified is owing to my having to deal with two arduous family matters over 3 years. I realised that in those unique and emotionally charged sagas, I had the ability to remain fair and neutral in the most challenging of circumstances.