Dr. Kirsti Samuels
Makes complexity legible - and gives you a way to act in it.
Read moreWill what got you here get you there?
A six-month leadership laboratory designed for accomplished women leading consequential work.
You already know how to do the work - it's what got you here. But leadership at this level asks something different. Expertise, effort, and experience alone aren't always enough.
Maybe you're stepping into a bigger role, navigating change, leading without formal authority, managing competing stakeholders, or facing a challenge you can't solve by working harder.
Bring the challenge. Work on it here. With expert faculty, a deliberately small cohort, and six months of real leadership practice.
Six months. Real work. Real practice.
6 monthsSustained leadership development
Up to 25 leadersA deliberately small cohort
Opening intensiveFaculty-led, experiential learning
Monthly case consultationsReal leadership challenges, examined with faculty and your cohort
Final intensive weekendIntegration and advanced practice
Expert faculty. Five award-winning educators with advanced academic expertise. Decades of leadership practice. One shared commitment: excellent teaching that changes how you see the problem and what you do next.
This is not another leadership course.
The Lab is built around practice and experimentation - not lectures.
Learn a framework. Bring it to a real situation. Test your thinking. Try something different. See what happens.
You might be dealing with
- A promotion that changed what people expect from you.
- Responsibility without the authority to control the outcome.
- A stakeholder who keeps getting in the way.
- A team that needs to change but isn't ready.
- A decision with no obviously right answer.
- A situation where you need to exercise authority differently.
Bring that. That's what we work on.
How it works
01
Opening intensive
Start with the leadership challenges that matter most. Learn practical frameworks, work through cases, and apply them to situations you're facing now.
02
Monthly case consultations
Bring a live leadership challenge to a small group led by faculty. Examine what's happening, test your diagnosis, and identify an experiment to take back to work.
03
Final intensive weekend
Return to the challenges and experiments you've worked on throughout the Lab. Connect what you've learned and sharpen the practices you want to carry forward.
Learn. Practice. Experiment. Reflect. Repeat.
The cohort
Up to 25 leaders.
A small cohort of accomplished leaders across sectors, disciplines, and organizations.
The format creates room for candid conversations about authority, credibility, visibility, ambition, power, and the expectations placed on women in leadership - without assuming every woman experiences leadership the same way.
You'll be challenged by different perspectives while working alongside people who understand the stakes.
The faculty
Great leadership teaching changes how you see the problem.
Dr. Cristina Stasia
Gets you out of your head and into the work: questioning, debating, experimenting, practicing.
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Julia Fabris McBride, PCC
Turns leadership into a live experiment - where cases, questions, and practice change how you lead.
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Dr. Heidi Stalla
Brings the right brain into the room - so the analysis stops circling and something new gets seen.
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Vivian Williams-Kurutz
Brings the body and the breath into leadership - so you stay steady when the stakes rise.
Read moreTogether, Kirsti, Cristina, Julia, Heidi, and Vivian are exceptional teachers. They bring intellectual depth without unnecessary jargon and make complex ideas accessible without oversimplifying them.
You won't just learn about leadership. You'll experience how excellent leadership teaching shifts how you think, see, and act.
Bring your challenge. Work on it with us.
Apply nowThe Women Igniting Leadership Lab is designed for mid-career women facing increasing levels of leadership responsibility, complexity and visibility. The Lab centers the experiences and challenges women encounter in exercising leadership. Participation is open to applicants of all genders who meet the program's admissions criteria and wish to engage seriously with this focus.