Partnerships
The mental game of chess doesn’t stop at any border.
Chess psychology travels well because the underlying patterns, including performance anxiety, post-loss recovery, and burnout, show up in every federation, club, and classroom that takes competition seriously.
Partners
Tunde Onakoya
Founder & Convener, Chess in Slums Africa
Bringing structured chess programming and mentorship to impoverished communities in Lagos, including the floating settlement of Makoko. Tunde and I have worked together on projects across Majidun, Oshodi, and beyond. Our years-long collaborations together ground us both in the realities of how trauma and community intertwine.
Haozhan Gao
PhD Student, Quantitative Marketing, Stanford GSB
Studying reinforcement learning, human-AI collaboration, and recommender systems, Haozhan and I share an appreciation for how information gets processed. He asks the same fundamental question this practice asks at the board: how do people actually think and decide? While we might use different technical lenses, I consult with him on translating psychological patterns into frameworks that can be measured and taught.
Varun Arora
CEO & Founder, OpenCurriculum
Building open, adaptable curriculum resources that help educators design better learning experiences without starting from scratch. Years of conversation with Varun deeply shaped how I understand the role of discipline in the act of helping others. Working alongside him shapes how I bring intentionality and structure to curriculum management and teaching, a way of thinking I carry into every program I build.
IM Ladia Jirasek
International Chess Master & Educator
Any good chess organization needs high-quality chess. Ladia, a friend of 15 years, is as gifted a player as he is a communicator about the game. Now a seasoned author and coach, he cares deeply about making chess accessible to players at every skill level. Our countless conversations return to exactly that: our role in chess culture and how we can strategically support others who share this game. CFCP wouldn't be complete without his input.
Olakunle Kasumu
President, Orchid-Lekki Chess Club
During my time with CIS-A, I became aware of many people in Nigerian chess I consider heroes in the space. Kunle is one of them, running events like the Nigerian National Chess Championship with a rare, wide-reaching entrepreneurial talent. Every conversation with him leaves me more excited for our ever-evolving partnership. What an honor.
Dr. Misty Xiong
PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy
Dr. Xiong draws on Contextual Therapy to examine how trust and fairness shape behavior, with a deep understanding of how significant parents and family are in who we end up becoming. This extends into her broader research, including her work on how domestic violence has historically been understood within Hmong family systems, and how cultural context shapes the way families communicate across generations. Her consultation on bridging emotional depth with cultural insight is vital in CFCP's work connecting with families.
Interested in partnering?
Federations, schools, clubs, and nonprofit chess programs are welcome to reach out about curriculum agreements, consulting engagements, or bringing a workshop series to your region.