Fall 2026 Cohort: Applications Now Open

The Fall 2026 cohort of the Alchemy of Leadership begins in October. Applications are now open. What follows is a direct description of what the programme is, who it is for, and how to apply. No marketing register.

The programme

Six months, fully virtual for the first five months and three weeks, with a two-day closing retreat in Hungary. Capped at six to eight participants. Begins October 2026. Concludes in April 2027, with the retreat in late March.

The structure is the five-element sequence: FIRE, WATER, EARTH, AIR, AETHER. Each month focuses on one element in turn, with the phases relating to each other in the refractive way I have written about elsewhere. The work is substantial. Participants commit to approximately six to eight hours per week — group sessions, individual sessions with me, structured written work, and the applied behavioural experiments of the EARTH and AIR phases.

The fee covers all programme materials, the closing retreat (accommodation and meals; participants cover their own travel to Hungary), and all individual sessions. There are no additional fees.

What the programme produces

I have written about this across the preceding six months of the Spring 2026 cohort’s journey. The short version: the programme produces integrated leadership capacity — the specific developmental consolidation that allows a leader to operate from a different interior architecture than the one they arrived with.

Concretely, what emerges is a leader who can hold more of what the role requires without consuming their own resources to do so; who makes better decisions under pressure because they are no longer managing their own activation while deciding; who has a qualitatively different relationship with the people around them because they are present to the actual conversation rather than to their interpretation of it; and who is capable, for the first time in many cases, of stewarding work that is longer than their own tenure.

This is not what most leadership development produces. The difference is substantial, and it is also the reason the format is what it is. Six months is what integration takes. The format cannot be compressed without producing something other than what it is designed to produce.

Who the programme is for

Senior leaders — typically five years or more in roles with material P&L or equivalent organisational responsibility — who have come to recognise that what their development now requires is different in kind from what further accumulation of skill, experience, or frameworks can produce. They are usually in one of three specific situations.

The first is a leader who has worked with conventional coaching, leadership development, or executive education over the preceding several years and has concluded, quietly, that the interventions have produced reflective satisfaction rather than structural change. They are not disillusioned with development itself. They have recognised that what they need is deeper than what the standard apparatus offers, and they are looking for the specific depth engagement that would address it.

The second is a leader approaching a transition — to a substantially larger role, into founder or C-suite territory, across a significant career pivot. The transition will require capacity they do not yet have. They know this, and they have recognised that the capacity cannot be acquired in the transition itself. It has to be built in the window before.

The third is a leader who has, through the accumulated experience of their own career, come to understand that the interior architecture they are running is the limiting factor in what their leadership will become. This recognition is not anxious. It is clear-eyed. They are ready to do the specific work that addresses the interior architecture rather than continuing to optimise the exterior performance.

Who the programme is not for

Three profiles that consistently do not fit.

Leaders seeking a credential. The programme does not offer a certificate in any meaningful sense. What it produces is developmental, internal, and observable to the people around the leader — not a qualification that can be added to a CV. Candidates who are primarily looking for a credential are better served elsewhere.

Leaders currently in acute situational pressure. If the leader is inside a current crisis, turnaround, or similar acute pressure event, the six-month engagement is not what is appropriate to their situation. The Leadership Under Pressure programme exists for leaders in these conditions. It is shorter, more concentrated, and designed to build specific capacity inside a current pressure window.

Leaders who want a facilitator rather than a developmental engagement. The programme is not executive coaching in the conventional sense. My role is not to facilitate the leader’s reflection. It is to do substantive developmental work alongside them, which involves bringing specific perspective, challenging when challenge is required, and holding the leader to the actual work rather than to the comfortable version of it. Candidates who prefer a facilitative engagement are better served by conventional coaching.

How the discovery call works

Thirty minutes, by video. The call is an actual fit conversation, not a sales call. I ask about the leader’s current situation, what has brought them to considering the programme, what they have tried before, what they are looking for. I describe the programme concretely. We discuss whether the fit is likely to be productive.

Approximately half of the discovery calls I conduct result in acceptance into a cohort. The other half result in one of three other outcomes: a recommendation that the candidate consider the Leadership Under Pressure programme instead, a recommendation of a different form of support entirely (a specific therapist or clinical psychologist, in some cases; a different kind of executive coach, in others), or the mutual conclusion that the timing is not right.

All four outcomes are legitimate. The call is designed to produce the right decision rather than to convert every candidate into the cohort. The cohort matters as a unit; the people in it matter to each other; and I am unwilling to accept candidates whose fit I am not confident about.

The cohort itself

Six to eight participants. Typically four to five European, two to three North American, occasionally one from elsewhere. Sector mix varies; in previous cohorts, the common ground has been the seniority of the leaders rather than the industry. Gender balance varies with each cohort; previous cohorts have ranged from fifty-fifty to majority female.

What matters for cohort composition is not demographic balance in the abstract sense. It is developmental readiness and the compatibility of the specific people in the room. A cohort of technically excellent candidates who are at very different developmental stages will not produce the quality of engagement that a cohort of differently-profiled but developmentally aligned candidates will. The fit conversations are, among other things, where this is assessed.

To apply

Book a discovery call. The Calendly link is above and at the bottom of every page on the Vantaris Leader site. There is no written application form. The conversation is the application. If the fit is productive, I follow up within a week with confirmation of acceptance and the next steps.

Applications close when the cohort fills, or by 12 September 2026, whichever comes first. Previous cohorts have filled earlier than the stated deadline. Leaders who know they want to pursue this are generally better served by booking the conversation sooner rather than later.

For leaders currently weighing whether the Alchemy of Leadership is the right engagement for them: the discovery call is where the question gets answered. It is not a commitment to the programme. It is a thirty-minute conversation that produces enough information for both of us to decide well. The link is below.