LGBTQIA+ Executive Fellowship

This specially designed, one-week program gives you the leadership, strategy, communication and decision-making skills to confidently shape the culture and respond to the challenges of tomorrow.

You will return to work with new capabilities, techniques, and mindsets to lead with confidence, shape the play and tackle complexity. You will be supported on this journey by your new professional network of other lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning executives from a diverse range of industries.

Key Benefits

A consistent thread woven throughout the program is an overarching theme focused on “unlearning” which challenges traditional managerial wisdom and adapting it to your context and lived experience.

• Develop your personal leadership style with a unique understanding of the influence your LGBTQIA+ identity imparts
• Build your authentic leadership presence and become a more dynamic, impactful and inspiring communicator
• Strengthen your strategic leadership capabilities
• Leverage the power of a design thinking mindset for your leadership and strategic thinking to unleash a creative approach to your role
• A powerful network of LGBTQIA+ peers for ongoing support and collaboration

Apply now.

LGBTQIA+ Executive Fellowship experience

Over five transformational days, you will work with fellow LGBTQIA+ leaders to tackle challenges and practice the skills that will take you into the next phase of your leadership journey.

Your experience will culminate in the creation of a personal action plan to transform learning into immediate action.

• Live action project work
• Simulations
• Interactive and experiential sessions to challenge and remove you from your comfort zone
• Guest speakers sharing their personal journeys, key insights and lived experiences

The program will run from 9am – 5pm at our CBD Campus and also include a welcome dinner, a celebratory closing dinner and hosted networking evenings to facilitate community building, collaboration and the strengthening of inter-industry networks.  

Guest speakers

• Alan Joyce AC - Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Qantas Airways and Patron, The Pinnacle Foundation
• Anna Brown OAM – Chief Executive Officer, Equality Australia
• Justin D'Agostino MH - Global Chief Executive Officer, Herbert Smith Freehills
• Kate Humphries - Australian businesswoman
• The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG - International Jurist, Educator, Former Judge and Patron, The Pinnacle Foundation
• Paul Zahra - Chief Executive Officer, Australian Retailers Association and Founding Chair, The Pinnacle Foundation

With more to be announced.

Who should attend?

• Mid- to senior-level LGBTQIA+ leaders with a minimum of 10 years of professional experience and five years of management experience
• LGBTQIA+ leaders from any size company or institution; any industry, not-for-profits, and public service employees
• LGBTQIA+ leaders who have recently transitioned from technical specialist to leadership or are about to
• Allies responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), talent management or leadership development interested in fostering LGBTQIA+ inclusion

Program Director

Associate Professor Massimo Garbuio

Massimo Garbuio is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney. His approach to research and training involves helping others – whether they’re students or seasoned strategists – imagine, ideate and design new sources of value. Massimo is passionate about the human impact that good ideas can make given the right approaches and skill-sets, whether within start-ups seeking a firm footing or organisations envisioning a new future.

Massimo holds a PhD from the University of Western Australia and has also trained at University College London and the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Strategic Management Society, the Design Research Society and the Academy of Management.