Leadership Programme

CHEAD Creative Leadership Programme 2025-26

“In times of crisis, organisations fall back on muscle memory – old behaviours that no longer serve us. Creative leadership means resisting the reflex and reimagining what’s possible.”

— Laura Bambach Jordan, Campaign Magazine 30 April 2025

The CHEAD Creative Leadership Programme is a professional development initiative designed to meet the urgent need for more equitable, imaginative, and context-responsive leadership and training in Art & Design, Creative Media and Related Disciplines in Higher Education (HE) in the UK.

It is a programme Crafted Exclusively for Leaders in Art, Design, Creative Media and Related Disciplines

Rooted in creative disciplines and a values-driven approach to institutional leadership, this programme offers a unique space for academic colleagues—engaged in teaching and/or research across art, design, creative media, and related disciplines—to explore new models of leadership, grounded in care, craft, community and cyclical wisdom.

The programme intends to support the current and next generation of creative academic leaders in our sector, from Programme Leader, Associate Deans to Heads of Department.

At a time when the higher education landscape is undergoing significant transformation, this four-month hybrid programme provides a safe and dynamic learning environment to equip you to lead with confidence and authenticity.

Course Structure

CHEAD’s Creative Leadership Programme is delivered online and in-person via key note presentations, discussions, small group work, fireside chats and peer-learning constellations.

The course consists of five days learning delivered over four themed weeks from November 2025 – February 2026 and offers a structured progression through key areas:

Week 1 Identity – Breaking Open Leadership

Led by Ve Dewey and Dr Catherine (Cat) Glover.

Over two immersive days, Week One of the residential programme sets the tone for the entire Creative Leadership Programme. Designed as both a soft landing and a provocation, this in-person gathering invites participants to step outside institutional routine and into a shared space of reflection, embodiment, and creative disruption.

Webinar 1 – A Fireside on Creative Rebellion & Leadership Integrity, with John S. Couch, author of The Art of Creative Rebellion and former VP of Product Design at Hulu.

Week 2 Expertise – Reclaiming how we speak, how we lead, and who we speak for

Led by Professor Shelley McNulty PFHEA and Dr John Maeda – VP Engineering, CoreAI

Week Two (one day, online) invites participants to reconnect with the insights and questions surfaced in Week One, deepening their exploration of purpose, identity, and leadership practice. Through reflection, constellation dialogue, and embodied inquiry, participants begin to articulate their “golden thread”, the personal values, creative instincts, and lived experiences that inform their leadership approach.

Webinar 2 – A Fireside on Designing Change in Times of Complexity

Week 3 (1 day) Support – Leading from the inside out: care as institutional strategy

Led by Joanne Jørgensen

Week Three shifts the focus from self to system, exploring how leadership can shape, disrupt, or reinforce institutional culture. Through critical reflection, dialogue, and creative interventions, participants unpack how dominant norms, unspoken power dynamics, and systemic bias operate within their organisations — and begin prototyping strategies for shifting culture from within.

Webinar 3 – An Intimate Fireside Conversation on Leadership & Wellbeing, led by Kiran Bhatti and Thomas Roulet

Week 4 (1 day): Advocacy – What we offer now shapes what comes next

Led by Nicola Watkinson, Managing Director of CityUK International and Associate at the Møller Institute and Angie Bual, Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Trigger.

Week Four concludes the programme with a focus on legacy, regeneration, and future-making. This session supports participants in articulating long-term leadership visions grounded in creative, relational, and culturally relevant values. Through ritual, dialogue, and creative provocation, the cohort explores what it means to lead with purpose across systems, beyond roles, titles, or institutions.

Online presentations will be recorded. In-person sessions are relaxed. There will be a 1.5-hour lunch break and regular breaks are scheduled for anyone who needs to step away.

Course Dates

Week 1 – 5 and 6 November 2025 09:30 – 17:00, In-person – Manchester Metropolitan University

Webinar 1 – Date TBC

Week 2 – 3 December 2025, 09:30 – 17:00, Online

Webinar 2 – Date TBC

Week 3 – 28 January 2026, 09:30 – 17:00, In-person, Sheffield Hallam University

Webinar 3 – Date TBC

Week 4 – 25 February 2026, 09:30 – 17:00 In-person, University of Westminster

Speakers

	Joanne Jørgensen is Founder of teamGlue and former Director of Nike’s Materials Innovation Studio. With 25+ years in global design leadership, she now supports organisations to build emotionally intelligent, values-led teams. Her work focuses on creative culture, care-based performance, and sustainable innovation through people-first leadership. Watch Joanne’s presentation from our Creative Leadership Programme taster series.
	Kiran Bhatti is a Counselling Psychologist and Wellbeing Advisor at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. She has supported hundreds of patients in the NHS, at Addenbrookes Hospital and in the charity sector, and has been trained in key methods of counselling, including humanistic, cognitive behavioural therapy, and psychodynamic therapy.
	Thomas Roulet is the Professor of Organisational Sociology and Leadership at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. He has received numerous accolades for his research and engagement and is currently co-chairing the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Leadership.
	Dr John Maeda is an American technologist and product experience leader with a passion for resilience and renewal. Currently serving as vp engineering, head of computational design / AI platform at Microsoft. His book Redesigning Leadership explores how creative intelligence transforms leadership in the digital age.

The Programme will enable you to

Critically examine dominant leadership paradigms: Through reflective dialogue and systems-focused training, explore how power, voice, and exclusion shape institutional cultures and personal leadership experiences in HE and the creative sector.
Develop and express a personal leadership identity: Build confidence through relational and embodied leadership training, rooted in creative practice, lived experience, and values-led decision making.
Apply learning from the programme to a self-defined Golden Thread project: Use practical tools and strategies developed through the programme’s training components to integrate learning into real-world leadership challenges.
Design and sustain ecosystems of support: Practise designing relational, resilient leadership environments through training in collaborative methods, care-based design, and peer learning structures.
Lead advocacy and systems change work: Apply strategic training in influence, systems thinking, and creative leadership voice to effect institutional and sector-level change.
Contribute to a distributed leadership community: Strengthen your role in a cross-sector leadership network through ongoing commitment to reflective practice, mentoring, and critical collaboration.

Our commitment to inclusion

CHEAD is committed to building an inclusive and representative cohort for this leadership course and welcome participants from all backgrounds and career stages, and we particularly encourage applications from individuals who are underrepresented in leadership roles across higher education — including people of the Global Majority (Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds), disabled people, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

We are committed to creating an inclusive, accessible learning environment. If you have any access needs or require adjustments to take part, we’ll work with you to make sure the course fully supports your participation.

Programme Costs

CHEAD Members Early bird: £1,000

CHEAD Members Full cost: £1,500

Non-member Early Bird: £1,625

Non-member Full Cost: £2,125

If you have any questions on any element of the programme, please get in touch: info@chead.ac.uk