Well it's been quite a few months.

The Sydney NeuroLeadership Summit was a big success. We had around 130 attendees in total, from across industry and academia. The program achieved it's intent of helping to build awareness of the field and educating those interested in these ideas. You can see a general overview of the event here, or a detailed report on the sessions here.

Also I recently did a 30 minute recorded summary of the event which can be listened to for free. I am delighted to know that the insights that were developed in Sydney can be shared more widely through audio recordings. These are available for order now, along with the DVD's from the first summit in 2007.


The NYC Summit is shaping up as a bigger event, with an amazing line up of presenters. Am very looking forward to connecting with old friends and making new ones as we explore together how to improve the quality of leadership in the world, through applying recent findings from neuroscience.

Straight after the Summit I went to the UK, where I experienced several highlights of my career to date. One was working for a day with the deans of the medical schools for the NHS, somewhere in the beautiful Cotswalds. More inspiring and surprising than the beautiful surrounds was learning that such senior leaders had been given so little development on the leadership front, outside of medical training. For most in their 50's and 60's, this was the first time they had been given development opportunities on the leadership side. To me this points to the urgency of developing a framework that is more accepted by scientific, engineering, medical, and generally analytically-focused people (read 'most executives'). It was humbling yet also very fulfilling to work with such smart people, and see an impact from explaining the functioning of the brain: especially relevant and of interest to this group were the social networks of the brain.

The second highlight for me was delivering a workshop at Oxford University, at the Said Business School for graduates of their masters in change management ('Consulting and Coaching for Change'). It was inspiring to see the impact of this new science on change consultants who knew the change literature and were involved in significant change projects. It seems the neuroscience helps fill an important gap.

The final highlight of my recent trip was a week in Asolo, Italy. Again despite the incredible beauty of the place (the Venetian nobility chose this as their summer playground centuries back), it was the people who moved me much more than the environment. I had the opportunity to spend time teaching MBA's and undergrads more about the brain. In my third year of doing this, it's so clear now how much students benefit from knowing about brain functioning, making them more able to deal with the stresses of learning, but also more effective at influencing others and driving change. One of the big benefits is that students learn to manage their own mental state far better, as well as better understand that of others.

Am now getting ready for a month or so in the US, to work on the NYC NeuroLeadership Summit, launch the new Journal and connect with some US clients. I hope to connect with readers of my blog at the NYC Summit.