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African Queens Summit: From Conversation to Implementation

Who Do I Choose to Be at This Time?

Leading From Wholeness™ is a 90-day executive leadership journey through The River Journey™ — for the queens, princesses, and women leaders of Africa and the Diaspora who carry responsibility for others and are ready to lead from a deeper sense of wholeness.

Delivery partners: Mercedes Martin & Company, whose Leading From Wholeness™ and The River Journey™ methodology power this journey

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You Carry More than a Title

Women in visible leadership often carry responsibilities that remain unseen: preserving tradition while responding to change, serving communities while navigating complex institutions, holding the needs of many with little protected space for their own discernment and renewal.

The strain is not a failure of capacity. It is the absence of a practice built for what the role actually asks.

The River Journey™ is built for exactly this: to remain grounded amid uncertainty and competing demands; to listen deeply to yourself, your community, and a changing world; and to exercise authority with courage, wisdom, and care. It builds the capacity to work across cultures, generations, institutions, and difference; to form relationships capable of carrying shared responsibility; and to translate vision and shared aspiration into meaningful action.

How the Journey Works

Leading From Wholeness™ moves through six named movements over roughly 90 days, held by facilitated executive coaching circles, individual conversations, and trusted peer partnerships.

Opening Session

A 1.25-hour opening session on Day 2 of the Oxford summit, Entering the River, introduces the central inquiry and begins the shared language the cohort carries forward.

The 90-Day Arc

Six movements unfold across roughly 90 days, each held in a facilitated virtual executive coaching circle, with peer partnerships carrying the work forward between sessions.

Individual Conversations

Two individual executive coaching conversations, at Week 3 and Week 11, personalize the arc and consolidate what has emerged before the closing circle.

Founding Cohort

10 to 12 queens, princesses, and women leaders move through the six movements together, in a group small enough to hold trust.

Six Movements, One Shared Arc

The River Journey™ moves with the river as a living system, not a programme to complete. Each movement is a facilitated circle, taken in order, one step in the same arc.

  • 1

    Tributary — Where I Come From

    “What do I carry from my life, lineage, place, and leadership?”

    Weeks 1-2
  • 2

    Current — What Keeps Me Going

    “What gives me the courage and energy to continue?”

    Weeks 4-5
  • 3

    Confluence — Who I Bring Together

    “What perspectives, responsibilities, and tensions must I bring into relationship?”

    Weeks 6-7
  • 4

    Coherence — What We Find in Common

    “What shared direction can emerge without asking us to surrender who we are?”

    Weeks 8-9
  • 5

    Horizon — Where I'm Headed

    “What future are my choices helping to create?”

    Weeks 10-11
  • 6

    Riverbed — What Holds Me Steady

    “What practices, relationships, and commitments will sustain the journey?”

    Weeks 12-13

Not Just Another Skills Workshop

The River Journey™ connects the leader's inner life with her relationships, cultural inheritance, public responsibilities, and capacity for collective action.

Whole-Human Development

Identity, purpose, emotional capacity, relationships, and embodied wisdom — not only professional performance.

Culturally Responsive Learning

Participants bring their histories, lineages, and cultural identities into the room as sources of wisdom for leadership.

Appreciative Strenghts-Based Inquiry

The work begins with the gifts, knowledge, relationships, and possibilities already present within the women and their communities.

Trusted Peer Connection

The cohort builds the trust, shared language, and mutual accountability needed to sustain relationships beyond the Summit.

From Insight to Collective Possibility

A bridge between individual discernment and the relationships, decisions, and coordinated action that shape institutions and communities.

Most Leadership Development Builds Skills. This Builds Leaders.

Traditional leadership programmes and The River Journey™ start from different premises about what leadership requires.

Skills → Whole-Human Development

Traditional programmes build individual competencies. The River Journey™ works with identity, purpose, emotional capacity, and embodied wisdom, alongside professional skill.



Individual Growth → Collective Leadership

Traditional programmes work with the participant alone. The River Journey™ builds the trust and shared language a cohort can act on together.



Short-Term Learning → 90 Days and Beyond

Traditional programmes conclude at the workshop's end. The River Journey™ runs 90 days and is designed to continue past it, through the peer relationships it builds.



Networking → Trusted Leadership Community

Traditional programmes offer contact lists. The River Journey™ builds relationships bound by shared practice and mutual accountability.



Competencies → Human Infrastructure

Traditional programmes add tools to a leader's kit. The River Journey™ builds the relationships and practices that carry an institution's or community's work forward.



Who Leads It

Leading From Wholeness™ and The River Journey™ are led by Mercedes Martin & Company (MMC), a One Thriving Planet Anchor Company.

Mercedes E. Martin-Burgess, MSc, MCEC
President & CEO, Mercedes Martin & Company • Co-Founder, One Thriving Planet • Inner Development Goals Ambassador

A coach, advisor, and social-impact architect, Mercedes has guided leaders at the intersection of AI, relational leadership, cultural equity, and regenerative systems change since 2017. Her path includes Cambridge's Sustainability Leadership programme and a formative immersion in Río Negro, Colombia with the UN Inner Development Goals network, where Leading From Wholeness™ moved from concept to embodied practice.

Founding Coaches

Joy Harrison-Abiola, MBA, FSM
Organizational and leadership consultant with over 25 years of experience, including two decades at Dentons ACAS-LAW. Founder and President Emeritus of the Association of Law Firm Administrators, and chair of the IBA's Law Firm Management CEO Subcommittee.

Winnie S. Bajilla
Zimbabwean executive leadership and organisational development practitioner, educator, and pastor. A Certified Organisational Development Consultant and Expert Facilitator for Women in Leadership at Centre for Organization Leadership and Development, with capacity-building work for two Zimbabwean government ministries.

How Enrollment Works

The first step is a short conversation, not a signed agreement.

  • 1

    Express interest

    Share your name, email, and where your interest sits using the form below.

  • 2

    Intake and fit conversation

    A short conversation to confirm fit, answer questions, and check that timing works for both sides.

  • 3

    Orientation

    Your coach sends a personal welcome and proposes a time for your first individual conversation, while the programme manager confirms scheduling.

  • 4

    The six circles begin

    The 90-day arc opens with Circle 1 in Week 1.

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Experience and Recognition

The broader One Thriving Planet network includes recipients of the 2024 Nobel Sustainability Award, the 2023 Innovation in Politics Award (Europe), and the CANEX Prize — Jury Chair (Africa), among other honors. (See all awards.) For this offering specifically: Leading From Wholeness™ and The River Journey™ draw on globally recognized platforms, including SOCAP Global, the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, the Inner Development Goals Initiative, the International Leadership Association, and leading Organization Development networks. Mercedes Martin-Burgess serves as an Inner Development Goals Ambassador, contributing to the global movement building the inner capacities required for sustainable development.

Join the Founding Cohort

Tell us where your interest sits, and we'll follow up personally within 48 hours.

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