In 2016, Elevate didn’t just launch a programme – it launched a different way of thinking about leadership.

At a time when leadership still often defaulted to command-and-control, especially under pressure, we built Elevate as a fully virtual, human-centred programme to support a 21st-century style of leadership – one fit for a more complex, connected and fast-changing world.

This wasn’t a reactive move.
It was a considered shift – away from hierarchy and control, and towards trust, autonomy and value creation.

From the start, we asked a different question:

What are the foundations of career success for people who want to lead in a 21st-century way?

Not through authority.
Not through position.
Not through control.

But through clarity, contribution and credibility.

The answer became what we came to call the EPIC formula® – a simple framework for how careers and leadership actually grow:

Exposure. Performance. Impact. Conscious.

Each of these pillars was deliberately designed to challenge a default assumption about success.

Exposure was redefined first.
It is not about who you know or proximity to power.
It is about who knows how you can help them.

That single shift moves people away from self-promotion and towards service, away from networking and towards usefulness, and away from visibility as performance and towards visibility as contribution.

Performance was reframed next.
Not as effort, hours or busyness – but as meaningful progress.
Movement in the right direction.
Change that actually matters.

The question stops being “How much am I doing?” and becomes “What is different because I did this?”

Impact made that question unavoidable.
There are only three kinds of impact: positive, negative and neutral.
And neutral – not because people aren’t working, but because their work lands flat – neutral is where careers go to die.

Impact shifts the focus from motion to movement, from activity to effect.

And finally, Conscious became the anchor.

Not conscious leadership. Just conscious.

Awareness of your strengths.
Clarity about what you uniquely bring.

Because when people are not conscious of their strengths, they tend to undervalue them, underuse them, and build careers around what is required of them rather than what is strongest in them.

Together, Exposure, Performance, Impact and Conscious form a simple logic for success.

Not louder.
Not harder.
Not faster.

But clearer.
More human.
More effective.

That is what Elevate was built to support.

And after ten years working with organisations, something else has shifted too.

More people are choosing to take ownership of their development rather than waiting for the right role, the right permission, or the right moment. In response, for the first time, Elevate is now open directly to individual participants.

If this way of thinking resonates, we’d love you to explore it further.

Registration for Elevate 2026 is now open to individuals for the first time – and closes on 23 January.

You can find full details, dates and pricing via this link.