Together, how can we more fully unleash the abundant potential of people, including ourselves, to collaborate across today’s many multi-faceted opportunities and complex issues? How can leadership be a greater catalyst for societal and eco-systemic advancement? How can leadership create the conditions for more equitable relationships across divides, even across lines of conflict?

We are experiencing a fast-changing climate, shifts in populations and in geo-political power, the consequences of pandemics, and exponential technology advances. These factors combined are reshaping how we live, how we interact, and how we work at a rapid pace and in ways we are yet to even imagine. A global pandemic like the Corona virus has presented us with unprecedented leadership challenges and through it we are learning we can adapt, more than we imagined was possible.

At the same time, we face growing inequalities. Freedom from fear and indignity, having a voice or a seat at the table are still far from being a shared reality. Our interdependent societies, industries and economies continue to offer opportunities for advancement, while also exposing vulnerabilities to disruption. Tensions are increasing along many divides and competition for real and imagined resources is intense.

Within organisations, change management mindsets are giving way to concepts of continuous adaptation and resilience. In increasingly diverse workplaces, everyone has a lead role to build collective trust, leverage different points of view, elicit new insights, and create sustainable value.

What isn’t changing is that engaging in leadership requires caring and compassion, it requires leaning into our anxieties, developing a tolerance for uncertainty, and learning to accept, even cherish our vulnerabilities. It also requires a commitment to understanding and removing systemic barriers that remain too high for too many people. Cross-generational and cross-gender understanding will unlock entirely new ways to advance.

It is time to expand what leadership means and who can lead. Do we need to change our approach toward the burden of steering the destiny of an organisation or a nation? Perhaps advancement will depend on a greater adoption of leadership practices across society? That said, global alliances and initiatives, like the Sustainable Development Goals and the multilateral system were designed for exactly such purposes and are challenged with maintaining progress and relevance.

It is with this backdrop that we invite you to join us in Geneva, Switzerland to imagine better, together. Surrounded by the natural beauty of crystal-clear lake and snow-capped mountains, Geneva does not have sister relationships with other cities, instead declaring itself related to the entire world. It is the birthplace of the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross and the InterParliamentary Union. The League of Nations was founded in Geneva and the United Nation’s second largest presence remains prominent. The city is home to the World Economic Forum and to CERN, the birthplace of the World Wide Web and the Hadron Collider. It’s a global finance, trading, and biotech hub. Geneva is one of 26 Swiss cantons that make up a nation of remarkable diversity, with four official languages and a direct form of democracy that has seemingly resisted contemporary populist influences.

To imagine is to form an image of something not present to the senses. This is a call to action that is ambitious, and it is ambiguous. We understand that. Yet the paths ahead have yet to be built. So, we invite you to reflect, think critically, think creatively…and take action by submitting a proposal. The Call for Proposals details and submission portal will open soon!

Together, let’s reimagine leadership for a safer, more just, and inclusive world.

Here are some questions to further stimulate your thinking and inspire you to respond to the call
for proposals when it opens