Programme Curriculum

Pre-Programme: The Executive Challenge Statement 

Before the programme, each participant identifies one real and consequential leadership challenge she is currently seeking to move within or beyond her organisation. This challenge is worked through applied activities across all five days and culminates in the Executive Challenge Boardroom on the final day. You will be asked to consider: 

• What Needs to Move? What is the decision, issue, opportunity or situation you are seeking to advance?  

• Why Does It Matter Now? What is at stake for you, your organisation or the wider system?  

• Who Can Move It — or Stop It? Where does formal and informal power sit?  

• Where Are You Stuck? What have you tried, and what is preventing progress?  

• What Would Success Look Like? What would a meaningful outcome look like? 

Take the Chair: The Room where Power Sits 

• Keynote Address 

• Moderated Executive Dialogue: “How Leaders Move What Looks Immovable” 

• Our Inheritance and Our Mandate 

• How Caribbean Women Helped Write the Global Gender Agenda, from Nairobi 1985 to Beijing 1995 

• Lucille Mair, Dame Nita Barrow, Peggy Antrobus, Dame Billie Miller and Eudine Barriteau – and what they were Arguing for 

• Where the Region Actually Stands Now on Education, Boards and Public Office 

• What this Generation Inherits, and what it is Expected to Settle 

• Authority and Judgment: The Decision Only You Can Make 

• Exercising Authority Without Over-Explaining 

• Making the Call When Every Option Has a Cost 

• Leading Under Scrutiny in Highly Visible Environments 

• Knowing when Consultation Ends and Leadership Judgement Begins 

• End-of-Day Activity: The Leadership Call 

• Executive Decision Statement 

Read the Room: The Room where Decisions are Shaped 

• The Decision Before the Decision 

• Understanding where Formal and Informal Power Really Sits 

• Identifying Gatekeepers, Influencers, Blockers and Allies 

• Recognising how Important Decisions are Shaped Before Formal Meetings 

• Using Political Judgement Without Compromising Integrity 

• Strategic Relationships and Executive Access 

• Building Relationships that Create Access, Insight and Influence 

• Building Cross-Sector, Regional and Global Relationships 

• Gaining Access to the Conversations where Decisions Take Shape 

• Maintaining Independence While Building Alliances 

• Negotiating Power, Mandate and Resources 

• Negotiating Mandate, Resources and Decision Rights 

• Managing Unequal-Power Negotiations 

• Balancing Relationship Preservation with Substantive Outcomes 

• Building Coalitions in Multi-Party Environments 

• End-of-Day Activity: The Power and Coalition Map 

• Power, Access and Coalition Map 

Make the Call: The Room where the Enterprise Moves 

• Beyond Expertise: Leading the Whole Enterprise 

• Moving From Functional Excellence to Enterprise Judgement 

• Balancing Strategy, People, Finance, Operations and Risk 

• Making Decisions for the Whole Institution, Not Your Own Function 

• Letting Go of the Expertise That Made You Indispensable 

• Decisions With Less Room for Error 

• Navigating Small-Market Concentration and External Exposure 

• Making Decisions Amid Talent, Climate and Resource Constraints 

• Knowing When Global Best Practice Fits — and When It Does Not 

• Turning Caribbean Constraints into Strategic Advantage 

• AI and the Next Leadership Divide 

• Understanding AI as an Enterprise Leadership Issue 

• Shaping Workforce and Operating-Model Decisions 

• Ensuring Women Help Design, Not Simply Absorb, Technological Change 

• End-of-Day Activity: The Enterprise Test  

• Enterprise Decision Brief 

Move the Organisation: The Room where People Follow  

• The Care Question: Who is Even Considered 

• What Unpaid Care Costs 

• Why the Region’s Provision Shapes Who is Offered the Posting, the Secondment and the Regional Role 

• Measuring What Caring Responsibilities Cost Your Own Organisation in Absence, Attrition and Unfilled Roles 

• Who Gets the Career-Making Work? 

• Allocating Stretch Assignments and Visible Opportunities 

• Building Pathways Into P&L, Operational and Enterprise-Critical Roles 

• Recognising How Unequal Exposure Affects Perceptions of Readiness 

• Creating Deliberate Opportunities for Emerging Leaders 

• The Sponsor Advantage: Who are You Willing to Back? 

• Moving From Mentorship to Active Advocacy 

• Using Reputational Capital to Create Opportunity 

• Sponsoring Beyond Familiar Profiles and Affinity 

• Opening Regional and Global Pathways for High-Potential Women 

• Succession — Who is Ready Because You Led? 

• Building Succession Pipelines Before Vacancies Emerge 

• Preparing Future Leaders Through Real Responsibility 

• Challenging Narrow Definitions of Readiness 

• Leaving an Organisation Capable of Performing Without You 

• End-of-Day Activity: Who Must Be Stronger Because of This? 

• Leadership Multiplier Plan 

Move the Table: The Room Beyond You 

• When Your Voice Carries Beyond the Organisation 

• Leading Across Organisational, National and Sectoral Boundaries 

• Knowing When to Speak and When Silence Carries a Cost 

• Managing Reputation, Scrutiny and Public Criticism 

• Using Institutional Voice Responsibly 

• Small Region. Global Room. 

• Building Credibility Beyond the Caribbean 

• Entering Global Conversations as an Expert, Not Simply a Regional Voice 

• Using Regional and Diaspora Relationships to Extend Influence 

• Turning Caribbean Experience into Global Leadership Capital 

• What Will Be Different Because You Led? 

• Strengthening Institutions and Leadership Pipelines 

• Passing Power and Opportunity Forward 

• Contributing to National, Regional and Global Priorities 

• Measuring Leadership by what Changed Because You Held the Role 

• Final Applied Experience: The Executive Challenge Boardroom 

• Executive Action Strategy