Executive education for senior women leading sustainability and systems change.

A residential executive education course for women leading sustainability and systems change, exploring living‑systems approaches that strengthen their authority, impact, and personal resilience.

Our world is at a critical tipping point. Climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and widening social inequality are no longer abstract challenges – they are shaping everyday leadership decisions. Yet many organisations still rely on mechanistic, efficiency-driven leadership models disconnected from living systems – approaches increasingly misaligned with the complexity of this moment.

Women working in sustainability and impact-focused roles are often leading change from within these conditions, whilst holding teams together, navigating ambiguity, influencing without full authority, and quietly carrying more than their share.

Leading With Nature is a three-day residential executive education course for senior women who want to lead systemic change in ways that are grounded, effective and sustainable – for themselves as well as at work.

Key Information

• Duration: 3rd – 5th July
• Price: £1,200 (includes accommodation, catering and tuition)
• What to bring: Appropriate outdoor and wet weather gear, including footwear for outdoor sessions and nature solos. A small mat or something waterproof to sit on. Casual, comfortable indoor clothing. A yoga or exercise mat and loose clothing.
• Terms and Conditions:

  • You must be 18 years or over to attend our courses.
  • For full list of terms and conditions click here

About the course

Hosted at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, and immersed in its surrounding woodland and hills, the course offers a rare pause from constant firefighting. Through a blend of regenerative leadership theory, executive coaching, peer learning and nature-based practices, participants step back to reflect, reconnect and re-orient how they lead.

With a clear gender lens, the course explores how inherited leadership norms shape women’s confidence, decision-making, and patterns of over-responsibility, and introduces credible alternatives rooted in living systems. Participants work with real leadership challenges from their own roles, ensuring insights translate directly into their organisational context.        

This is not about adding more tools or doing more. It is about leading differently – with greater clarity, steadiness and authority.

Participants leave clearer about what is theirs to carry, more confident in their influence, and better resourced to lead meaningful change over the long term.

Who is this course for?

This course is designed for:

• Senior and mid-senior women leading teams, programmes or strategy
• Working in sustainability, climate, environment, social impact or the green transition
• Leaders with responsibility for people, budgets and complex decision-making
• Women who care deeply about impact and are questioning the personal cost of how they currently lead
• Those seeking rigorous content, space to think, learning alongside peers who understand their reality
• Open to all who identify as women.

Participants are experienced professionals who value reflection, depth and application, and who want leadership development that is both intellectually credible and personally sustaining.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, participants will:

• Understand regenerative leadership and why extractive leadership models undermine long-term impact
• Recognise patterns of over-responsibility, urgency and invisible labour in their leadership roles
• Strengthen their authority and influence without over-functioning or self-sacrifice
• Apply systems thinking informed by nature to navigate complexity, risk and ambiguity
• Develop practical ways to lead teams and organisations in more regenerative, sustainable ways
• Leave with greater clarity, confidence and energy to lead change over the long term

Participants will explore:

• Regenerative leadership in practice – future fit leadership for VUCA times. 
• Women, power and authority – addressing the authority gap and inner leadership dilemmas
• Responsibility mapping – clarifying what is (and isn’t) yours to carry
• Systems and complexity – using nature and living systems to inform leadership decisions
• Leadership styles and strengths – through TetraMap and elemental perspectives
• Embodied leadership practices – nature-based reflection, sensing and integration
• Application to real leadership challenges – translating insight into action

Tutors

Lead Tutor

Rhian Sherrington is an Executive Coach and leadership development practitioner specialising in supporting women leading sustainability, climate and systems change.

She designs and delivers leadership development programmes and group coaching for women at mid-career to senior levels, alongside one-to-one executive coaching with leaders navigating complexity, responsibility and influence in purpose-driven roles. Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, gender and regenerative thinking.

Rhian is the founder and Head Coach of the Women in Sustainability Network (WINS), a global community of women professionals working across sustainability and environmental sectors. Her approach draws on regenerative leadership principles, systems thinking and nature-based learning, combining rigour with reflection and embodied practice.

She is a certified TetraMap® facilitator and Mighty Heart® trainer, and has worked with organisations including Triodos Bank, ClientEarth, Soil Association, Eunomia Research & Consulting, Historic England and Oxford University.

Contributing Tutor:

Jannine Barron works with visionary business leaders from solo founders to medium sized companies who recognise that regeneration is not a trend but the future becoming visible. She is a certified leadership coach, forest bathing practitioner and a business mentor.

As the founder of Nature’s Boardroom and The Growth Experience, she brings decision-makers into direct relationship with the living world as integral to strategy. Through her private mentoring and system change advisory work, Jannine acts as a voice of nature within organisations and is a speaker and teacher on the power of nature and regeneration as a transformative force in these times.