Optically active vicinal diamines are versatile chiral building blocks in organic synthesis. A soft Lewis acid/hard Brønsted base cooperative catalyst allows for an efficient stereoselective coupling of N-alkylidene-a-aminoacetonitrile and ketimines to access this class of compounds bearing consecutive tetra-and trisubstituted stereogenic centers. The strategic use of a soft Lewis basic thiophosphinoyl group for ketimines is the key to promoting the reaction, and aliphatic ketimines serve as suitable substrates with as little as 3 mol % catalyst loading. Scheme 1. Background for this work.(diphenylthiophosphinoyl)ketimines has been developed. Ketimines bearing sp 3 substituents on the imine carbonyl group were generally used with high diastereo-and enantioselectivity. The use of the soft Lewis basic ketimine was the key to promoting the reaction with a soft Lewis acid/hard Brønsted base cooperative catalyst.