Leadership development never ends.

Whether it's time to focus on strategy or to deepen a particular skill, I design and execute intensive programs that hit the goal in a short amount of time and leave participants with something they carry back to the workplace.

The best executive offsite isn't a break from the work.

It IS the work.

Culture Catalysts Retreat 2024

1.5 Days | Multi-Industry Leadership Audience | 100% Overall Satisfaction | 4 Custom Workshops | Full Program Design & Facilitation

This wasn't a team-building exercise or a reward trip.

It was a carefully architected leadership development experience designed to do three things: deepen relationships among leaders from across industries, build practical inclusion skills with immediate workplace application, and send people home with something they would actually use.

I designed every element — the learning objectives, the workshop curriculum, the facilitation approach, the program flow, and the environment itself — to serve those goals.

Learning Objectives

  • Equip leaders with concrete inclusion skills they can apply immediately in their organizations.

  • Build genuine peer relationships that extend beyond the event.

  • Create psychological safety deep enough for honest reflection and real behavioral commitment.

Program Architecture

  • Opening community circle to establish norms, build trust, and set individual learning intentions; creating the conditions for meaningful workshop engagement before

    content delivery begins.

  • Four custom-designed workshops delivered across 1.5 days:

    • Seeds of Self-Awareness: Identifying the unconscious patterns that shape how we lead, and how we include.

    • Embodying Your Power: Moving from awareness to action: how leaders show up physically, emotionally, and interpersonally in high-stakes moments.

    • Developing Team Connectedness: Practical frameworks for building the psychological safety and trust that high-performing teams require.

    • Creating Safe Spaces for Trust to Thrive: Applying inclusion principles to real workplace scenarios, with peer accountability built in.

  • Custom-designed workbook to extend learning beyond the session, improving retention and real-world application.

  • Closing accountability structure: participants left with specific commitments and peer accountability partners — because behavior change doesn't happen in the room, it happens after it.

Outcomes

  • 100% of attendees rated the overall experience as satisfying or highly satisfying.

  • Workshop impact ratings ranged from "significant impact" to "life-changing" across all four sessions.

  • Attendees spontaneously created a group chat to maintain peer relationships and accountability. A strong signal that genuine community was built during the event.

"Struck the right balance of togetherness, relationship building, vulnerability by choice, and alone time."

— Tiffany K., VP Client Delivery

Creating an environment where senior leaders from multiple industries will be genuinely honest, take real risks, and make real commitments requires a particular kind of presence in the room.

That presence is something I have spent fifteen years building.

Scenic view of a park with a winding path, lush green grass, small trees, and a backdrop of mountains and cloudy sky at sunset.
A long wooden dining table decorated with artificial autumn leaves, candles, and small votive holders, set in a room with wood-paneled walls and large windows showing a view of trees outside.
Invitation card for DEI Community Retreat with watercolor forest background, featuring green trees, a stream, and a sky.
A conference room with a long wooden table adorned with white floral centerpieces, surrounded by upholstered chairs, and a whiteboard on a stand in front of wooden windows.
Seven women sitting around a wooden conference table in a well-lit room with large window and wooden paneling. The table has flowers, drinks, notebooks, and electronic devices, and the women are smiling at the camera.
Promotional graphic for the Cultivate Empathy Retreat, October 3-6, 2024, featuring a smiling group of diverse people and a scenic landscape with a river and mountains at sunset.
Modern living room with mid-century style furniture, wooden ceiling beams, and large windows showing a rocky outdoor patio with seating, all illuminated by hanging pendant lights resembling pine cones.
A display of wooden discs with colorful, concentric circle patterns, arranged on a wall above a table with gift bags wrapped in yellow and green tissue paper and tags with names.
A handwritten quote on a white piece of paper that reads, 'Inclusion starts with me. I'm responsible for how I show up for my coworkers.' The paper is laid on a brown surface, with two black fountain pens, a small ink bottle, and a green leafy plant
Five women sitting together on a stone bench in front of a stone fireplace, smiling.
Sunset over lush green lawn with trees, mountains, and a lake in the distance; there are Adirondack chairs and a building with a green roof in the foreground.
Dining table set with glasses, cutlery, and a bottle with a plant, overlooking a grassy outdoor area with people playing, surrounded by trees and mountains during sunset.
Title slide for 'Culture Catalysts Retreat: Seeds of Self-Awareness' by Candice Heidebrecht, October 2024, featuring botanical illustrations and a dark green background.
A promotional graphic for the DEI Community Circle featuring a laptop showing a virtual meeting with diverse participants, surrounded by green leaves on a brown background with gold accents, and text inviting viewers to register to join.
Cover page for 'Cultivate Empathy's DEI Practitioners Retreat' proposal, including images of people engaging in outdoor activities, a group watching a performance, and a nature scene.

What Makes an Executive Offsite Work

It's not the venue. It's not the agenda. It's the design decisions that happen before anyone arrives: the learning objectives that are specific enough to measure, the session sequencing that builds trust before it asks for vulnerability, the facilitation that can hold a room of senior leaders and still make space for everyone in it.

And it's the measurement that happens after: did people go back to work and do something differently? That's the standard I design to.

Let's Discuss What You Need