FROM THE INDUSTRY
collaboratively with partners. Instead of asking, “Would you like to take this course?” we now ask, “What are you trying to accomplish this year?” Then we work backward to align our curriculum with their organisational goals, leadership themes and operational objectives. The results have been remarkable. We’re now delivering content that ranges from full-day deep dives on specific topics to one-hour lunch-and-learns that help teams quickly learn new concepts and language. This approach creates scale within organisations in a way we couldn’t achieve before. Instead of one person returning from a course with newfound knowledge and no shared vocabulary, we’re now embedding concepts across leadership levels, creating a common language for innovation and change. Jeff English, Senior Director of Technical Operations for Comcast, experienced this first-hand when he completed our Finding Opportunity in Change courses this past spring. He told us: “It was really great because sometimes we’re in a vacuum in our own organisations. Having people from different parts of other businesses and companies and hearing what they’re going through lets us see the similarities we all share, while allowing us to hear different perspectives.”
When we launched Intrapreneurship Academy (IA) in 2018, we were responding to a need in the connectivity industry. Through focus groups and conversations with the next generation of leaders, we kept hearing the same challenge: talented professionals wanted to be entrepreneurial, disruptive, and creative within their organisations, but the guardrails of big companies made it difficult to innovate from within. They needed more than permission to think differently. They needed skills, frameworks, and confidence to drive change while maintaining organisational support. That insight became the foundation of Intrapreneurship Academy—a natural evolution of Syndeo Institute’s 40-year mission to steward the history and legacy of our industry through education.
us: the world got comfortable with virtual learning, and it opened doors we hadn’t anticipated. Today, we maintain that global, blended cohort model that brings together professionals from across the world. But we’ve evolved far beyond our original eight-week format. We now offer our programme in three-week sessions with breaks in between, allowing participants to absorb and apply their learning without the pressure of being locked into continuous coursework. This flexibility matters because it respects the reality of demanding leadership roles while maintaining the depth and rigour that creates real transformation. Meeting Organisations Where They Are Perhaps the biggest evolution has been in how we deliver our content. A couple of years ago, we recognised that one size doesn’t fit all. While our traditional cohort model remains powerful and essential for many of our partners, organisations have different needs at different levels. That’s why we expanded our offerings to include masterclasses and webinars that allow us to customise content
From In-Person to Global Impact
Our journey began with an in-person model where participants would come to Denver for kickoff and capstone sessions, with virtual classes in between. Then COVID-19 changed everything. Like many organisations, we pivoted to 100% virtual delivery, and what we discovered surprised
Volume 48 No.1 MARCH 2026
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