Where Leadership Is Learned, Not Assumed

The Challenge

Design professionals are promoted into leadership based on their technical skills. Then they are expected to lead firms, manage people, win clients, and navigate complexity with no formal training in how to do any of it.

Professional development is not optional. It is the difference between firms that scale with intention and firms that grow until they break.

Our Core Programs

Redefining an Understanding of Leadership

Leadership is not simply management. Management maintains systems and people. Leadership transforms them.

This bespoke program begins with a structured assessment of your firm’s leadership culture and vision, followed by an immersive curriculum grounded in your organizational priorities and tailored to participants.

The program focuses on leadership fundamentals rarely taught formally: the business of design, strategic mindset, decision-making, accountability and consequences, emotional intelligence, and other competencies required in high-stakes project and client environments.

Blending theory with application, the curriculum draws on contemporary leadership research, design thinking, and industry case studies. Experiential learning, peer dialogue, and facilitated reflection help participants translate insight into action within their firms.

The result is stronger, more strategic leadership equipped to guide organizations through sustained change. This is not a one-off training, but a developmental experience that continues to shape how participants think and lead over time.

Format: Cohort-based curriculum combining in-person and virtual sessions, lectures, and applied practice and projects. Details available upon inquiry.

Who Should Attend: Professionals stepping into or deepening leadership roles in increasingly complex project, team, and market environments, including senior firm leaders, project leaders, and emerging leaders.

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Creating Business Development as a Culture

In our decades of observing the industry, most firms rely on 10 to 20 percent of their people to generate all new work. This model is fragile, unsustainable, and limits long-term growth. 

Rather than treating business development as a sporadic, individual effort, this program positions it as a shared responsibility embedded in firm culture.

The curriculum begins with the fundamentals of business development, grounded in relationship building rather than selling. It introduces systems for cultivating firm-wide business development, formalizing and tracking efforts, identifying target sectors and growth markets, and differentiating firms in crowded markets. Participants build practical capabilities through structured learning and guided workshops.

The outcome is a firm culture where business development is practiced daily, shared across teams, and reinforced over time. Participants are equipped to apply what they learn in their own work and enable others to do the same, making business development a consistent and collective driver of growth.

Format: Cohort-based program combining in-person and virtual sessions, lectures, interactive practice, and workshops. Details available upon inquiry.

Who Should Attend: Professionals responsible for driving growth, including firm leaders, emerging leaders, and business development leaders.

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Why Cohort-Based Learning

Peer Accountability
Your cohort becomes your advisory board. You bring real challenges. They ask hard questions. You leave with clarity.

Sustained Engagement
Learning happens over months, not days. Concepts are introduced, applied, refined, and integrated into how you lead.

Relationships That Endure
The connections you build in your cohort outlast the program. These become the peers you call when facing decisions alone.

Applied, Not Theoretical
Every session connects to decisions you are making now. Frameworks tested in current practice, not case studies from decades ago.

Program Expectation

Cohorts are intentionally small to ensure depth, dialogue, and meaningful transformation. The program is designed for professionals and firms ready to engage fully, apply learning in real work, and commit to sustained development. This level of participation is what turns learning into lasting change.

If you are ready to invest in leadership development and bring a learning program to your organization, we invite you to get in touch.

Why This Matters

The organizations that will lead the next decade will not be the ones with the best design talent. They will be the ones with the best leadership.

Leadership is the constraint. It is also the opportunity.

Professional development is not about credentials. It is about capability. The capability to lead with conviction, navigate complexity, and build organizations that learn faster than conditions change.

Begin the Conversation

Tell us where you stand. What leadership gaps are holding your organization back?

We will meet you there with proven programs, peers who have done the work, and the conviction that leadership can be learned.