Every year, 30 executive education professionals from around the world come together for eight months of learning, mentoring, and honest conversation about the challenges we all face. That’s the UNICON Leadership Academy – and the 11th cohort is now open for applications, with seats filling quickly.
Whether you’re new to executive education or stepping into a broader leadership role, the Academy is designed to meet you where you are. It’s not a lecture series. It’s a hands-on, highly interactive program built by and for people in this industry—with faculty drawn from senior leaders at UNICON member schools worldwide.
Hear It from the Program Directors
Program directors Peter Methot (Rutgers Business School) and Shalini Bhatia (Stanford GSB, UNICON Board Chair) recently hosted a webinar walking through the program structure, the mentoring experience, and what makes this cohort-based model so effective. If you’re on the fence, this is worth 30 minutes of your time:
What the Experience Actually Looks Like
The Academy kicks off in October with a session on purpose-driven leadership and the global executive education landscape, led by UNICON Executive Director Melanie Weaver Barnett. In November, the cohort meets face to face—this year at Arizona State University in Phoenix—for a full-day workshop ahead of the Team Development Conference. That in-person time is where the real bonds form.
From January through June, live virtual sessions cover the topics that matter most right now: driving growth, operational excellence, high-performance teams, leveraging AI, and measuring the value of what we do. Sessions are interactive and scheduled to accommodate global time zones. Everything is recorded, so if life gets in the way, you won’t fall behind.
Around 70% of participants also take advantage of the optional mentoring program, where you’re matched with a senior leader in the industry for three months of one-on-one conversation. Many of those relationships continue long after the program ends.
Why It Works
There’s something powerful about being in a room—virtual or in person—with people who understand exactly what your day looks like. The late-night program redesigns, the stakeholder juggling act, the constant reinvention that executive education demands. The Academy gives you a space to step back, learn from peers across very different school sizes and geographies, and think strategically about where you’re headed.
The cohort deliberately brings together people from small teams and large operations, from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The diversity is the point. You’ll get ideas from contexts you’d never encounter inside your own institution—and you’ll find that many of the challenges are shared.
Spots are limited and filling now.
Applications are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
Apply for Fall 2026Have questions? Reach out to Taryn Streed at taryn@uniconexed.org—she’s been coordinating the Academy since Cohort 3 and knows the program inside out.