The California-based Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program is more than a learning experience -- it's the next step in your evolutionary journey.  With a unique curriculum designed to accelerate consciousness transformation, this program weaves together sacred, practical, and technological arts for foundational change. The Blue Sky Leaders program is highly experiential, with a mix of in-person and online sessions, and an extraordinary group of thought-leaders and experts from multiple fields. 

Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program

The outcome of this program is a Certificate in Conscious Leadership. Applications for the 2026 cohort will be accepted soon.

Schedule

The Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program training runs for a total of 11 months, with five long-weekend residencies set at Northern California resorts and retreat centers, and five online sessions. 

Real-time attendance at the online sessions is required.   

Curriculum

Over the course of the eleven residential and online sessions, our facilitators and guest teachers will support students in exploring the following themes:

• Awakening to fundamental well-being: Grounding and embodying the transformative insights of contemplative practice.

• Creatively confronting meaning loss and systems failure in our critical times.

• Contextualizing the challenges and opportunities of our moment with insights from new cosmology, cognitive neuroscience, spiritual wisdom, and the story of evolution.

• Exploring participatory cosmology for insight into new economic and ecological paradigms.

• The importance of Iain McGilchrist's hemispheric hypothesis for wise, effective leadership in times of rapid change.

• Waking up in the Great Turning: Practices for Personal and Planetary Thriving.

• Reconnecting to imagination, intuition, and purpose for the transformation age.

• Stewarding wise leadership and consciousness development in the age of AI and the planetary mind.

• Leading through harmony and resonance: Jazz and Zen Leadership Styles in Conversation.

• Connecting wisdom cultures with cutting-edge science to create a thriving future.

After the first residency, Blue Sky Leaders will participate in a specially designed, 60-day contemplative training process. Throughout this period and afterwards, participants will receive support in working with obstacles, and in the stabilization and integration of their experiences.

The many themes explored will not be presented in isolation, but as key elements in an evolving dialogue, each building on and enriching the other.  The inner and the outer -- the personal, cultural, planetary, and cosmological dimensions of our lives -- must be engaged and unfolded together.  This integrative and expansive approach fosters a forward-thinking, planetary consciousness -- equipping leaders with the depth and breadth of understanding necessary to navigate our complex, rapidly evolving world. 

Requirements

Designed for professionals and visionaries in technology, business, education, and the arts, the Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program immerses participants in the dynamic confluence of personal transformation, conscious enterprise, and impactful leadership. 

Candidates for the Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program should meet the following minimal requirements:

• A bachelor's degree or equivalent in any field
• 10 years of professional experience, with some of it in a leadership or management role
• A demonstrated commitment to leadership growth and development, broadly defined

Ideal candidates should also have some degree of personal transformation experience and a strong interest in addressing global or social issues.

The Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program encourages applications from eligible individuals who identify at BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or other under-represented populations.

Certificate and Residence Requirements

Our hybrid program is 11 months and includes a mix of in-person and online sessions. In-person sessions include five exclusive long-weekend residencies set in the natural beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Apply

Applications for the 2026 cohort will be accepted soon. Please contact Bruce Alderman, Associate Director, at bslinquiries@ciis.edu for more information.