Leading at the Threshold

We are at a turning point. Something rare is taking shape.

Most leadership teams already know their current playbook is straining under complexity it wasn't designed for: climate volatility, AI disruption, geopolitical shocks, workforces running on empty.

We are the first generation with the potential to see the full consequences of the models we inherited. The complexity is visible. The stakes are clear. And the instinct is to refine the playbook harder.

Refining what already exists, however skilfully, won't be enough. Our organisations need new ways of thinking, relating, and deciding, suited to conditions few of our existing tools were built for.

The IDG Business Forum brings together an intentionally intimate group of 50 leaders, researchers, and change agents who've stopped waiting for the old models to catch up.

"The way we are solving problems is the problem." - Erik Fernholm

Inner development is not a retreat from the hard work of leadership. It is the hard work.

The shift that matters here is not only personal. It is what changes inside organisations, and between them, when leaders develop the capacity to think, decide, and collaborate differently under real pressure.

After years of running IDG Summits, we have seen what becomes possible when the right people are in one room, off the record, and willing to go beyond the surface.

This forum takes that into the organisations and sectors where the stakes are highest: into questions of culture, strategy, and how companies learn from one another across sectors.

Expect two days of serious peer-level work on what leading well actually demands right now.

This forum is for

• Leaders, researchers, and change agents carrying real responsibility, who are ready to change how they lead.

• Investors, policymakers, and educators who set the conditions organisations operate in, and know those conditions have to shift.

• Founders and emerging leaders building something new, who want to build it differently from day one.

• Organisations ready to be at the forefront of systemic change, and to act as catalysts for the shifts their sectors need.

What we're working towards

• A clearer sense of where your work intersects with others in the room, and where you can move faster together.

• A shared language for the human and cultural side of the challenges your organisation is navigating.

• Renewed energy and resilience that holds up under real pressure.

• Cross-company collaborations that start at the forum and outlast it.

• A clearer sense of your own part in the changes this moment is asking for.

• Sharper clarity on your own strategy, tested against the experience of leaders facing comparable pressures.

  
  

  What we explore together

  The themes below emerged from conversations with partners before the forum. They are starting points, not an agenda.

  • How do we build organisations that hold the tension between short-term pressure and long-term purpose?

  • What would actually make us more fit for the complexity we're facing?

  • What would it take, across sectors, to become the change-makers this transformation needs?

  • What does real resilience look like in practice?

  • What would our strategy look like if it took the inner and relational side of the work seriously?

  • What's stopping us from acting on what we already know, and what would close that gap?

  
  

  Hosts & Facilitators

  This runs as a working group, not a lineup of speakers. The facilitators are leaders and practitioners embedded in this work at organisations including Welser Group, Volvo, WBCSD and Mobius Executive Leadership, and they stay inside the conversation alongside you throughout.

  • James Gomme - Director of Education & Knowledge Management, WBCSD

  • Amy Elizabeth Fox - Co-Founder & CEO of Mobius Executive Leadership

  • Christoph Franke - Member of The Group Management Board – Transformation, Strategic & New Business, Welser Group

  • Mickael Drouard - CEO, Fabric & Lead of IDG-Mobius Leadership Lab for Systemic Transformation

  • Madeleine McGirk - Managing Director, International Teaching Artists Collaborative

  • Johan Holm - Gestalt Psychologist & IDG Business Coalition Coordinator

  • Erik Fernholm - Co-founder, 29k & IDG Co-initiator

  • Pontus Holmgren - Psychologist & IDG Global Hubs Coordinator

  • Jan Artem Henriksson - IDG Co-initiator & Senior Fellow at the Human Flourishing Network, Harvard

  • More to be announced...

  
  

  The format

  Built on the arc of Joanna Macy's "Work That Reconnects": starting with what's actually true about where things stand, working through the difficulty honestly, and leaving with something concrete. From IT, to I, to WE.

  Over two days, there is space to hear from a diversity of voices, engage in meaningful dialogue, and together shape the conversations that most need to happen. There will be a mix of participant hosted sessions around cases and themes, plenary presentations and large group conversations.
  

  Day 1: Facing what’s real
  

  09:30 - Welcome, Introduction & Gratitude

  The Current State: How Are Businesses Affected and Responding?

  Break

  Our Personal Experience in This World

  12:00 - Lunch

  Leading in Chaos: Renewal, Restoration, Resonance

  Fireside Conversations

  19:00 - Dinner
  

  
  

  Day 2: Building what’s next 
  

  08:30 - Morning Reflection

  How Can We Support Human Development in the Industrial Transformation?

  Break

  Cross-Organisational Collaboration and Complex Challenges

  12:00 - Lunch

  What Collaborative Initiatives Do We Want to Initiate?

  Break

  What Will I Bring Home?

  16:30 - Closing
  

  
  

  Location

  Djurönästet Conference Center, Stockholm

  Djurönäset is one of Sweden’s largest spa and conference hotels, set in the Stockholm Archipelago in Värmdö municipality roughly 45 minutes from the city centre.

  The hotel opened in 1979, purpose-built to create ideal conditions for learning and development in a natural archipelago setting. The original architectural concept, named “Fresh Air,” was built on the principle that creativity, focus, and wellbeing flourish when we move and breathe in open surroundings.

  It holds the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, one of the Nordic region’s established environmental certifications, and its kitchen works with seasonal, locally sourced produce from the archipelago and wider Scandinavia.
  

  Find out more about Djurönäset.

  Contact: If you have any questions please send us a mail. 

  

  About the IDG Business Coalition
  

  The Coalition supports organisations in developing the inner and relational capacities needed to lead in complexity, strengthen collaboration across sectors, and integrate inner development as a core capability for innovation, resilience and long-term value creation.
  Through leadership labs, peer learning, and partner-driven forums, we develop the inner and relational capacities needed to lead well in a world that demands something new of us.