Our Origin Story
More than a decade ago, we met on an exploratory program in Delhi, India. We remember walking through crowded markets where the air was thick with spice and diesel; scooters weaving through impossibly narrow lanes, vendors calling out over the rhythm of daily life. Color pressed in from every direction (saris, marigolds, hand-painted signs) and the pace of the city forced us to be fully present. There is something about being immersed in a place so layered and alive that strips away pretense. You notice more. You listen differently. You begin to see yourself more clearly.
Somewhere between site visits and long debriefs, we discovered we had both been raised in Iowa. That realization landed quietly. Two Midwesterners, halfway around the world, shaped by similar rhythms of community, work ethics, and humility. It created ease in our conversations. We stayed in touch. Our careers have advanced. The responsibilities are multiplied.
The day our paths first crossed in India — leading and participating in a global site visit that would later inspire the creation of Executive GlobeTREK
And over the years, our conversations returned to a shared observation: leaders are rarely given intentional space to step outside their environments and see themselves clearly. Executive GlobeTREK emerged from that experience. We did not set out to build a company. We set out to create the kind of space we once needed: thoughtful, global, reflective space where leadership can recalibrate and renew.
Across decades of senior leadership, we carried significant responsibility; overseeing teams, managing multi-million-dollar budgets, shaping strategy, and sitting at executive decision-making tables. We operated in complex organizations where the stakes were high and the expectations constant. And across those experiences, we kept witnessing the same truth:
Leadership was becoming heavier.
With each promotion came more oversight, more urgency, and more decisions carrying significant institutional responsibility. On paper, it looked like success. Behind the scenes, it often felt unsustainable. Strategic thinking gave way to constant reaction. Reflection became a luxury. Renewal felt indulgent. Sustainable models of leadership were rarely visible. We admired leaders who appeared steady and energized — leaders who didn’t seem drained by the weight of their roles. And we began asking: What support do they have? Why isn’t that kind of development accessible to more leaders?
At the same time, through more than two decades of designing and leading global learning initiatives across more than 60 countries, we witnessed something powerful. Transformation does not happen in comfort. It happens when people step outside the familiar — into new cultures, new landscapes, new ways of thinking. We saw it in our students time and again: when individuals encounter different histories, perspectives, and lived realities, reflection deepens. Identity sharpens. Purpose clarifies.
We knew the same could be true for executive leaders.
Over decades of executive leadership and global program design across more than 60 countries, we witnessed a powerful pattern: the experiences that transform people most deeply are not the most scheduled or transactional. They are the ones that create space.
Space to step away from noise.
Space to encounter new cultures and perspectives.
Space to reflect on identity, impact, and legacy.
Space to return with clarity instead of exhaustion.
When leaders are given intentional space to grow — to think, to reconnect with purpose, to recalibrate — that investment ripples outward. Teams feel it. Culture reflects it. Organizations perform differently because of it.
Executive GlobeTREK was founded to create that space with intention, rigor, and beauty.
We built experiences we both wished had existed at pivotal moments in our own careers: immersive, structured sabbaticals designed not as escape, but as elevation. Our Leadership Sabbaticals blends renewal with intellectual depth, global immersion with strategic clarity, and purposeful pause with measurable return.
We believe leadership growth does not happen in conference rooms alone. It happens when leaders step beyond the familiar — when they test ideas against landscape, history, and lived culture. When they TREK: Think. Reflect. Engage. Know.
Executive GlobeTREK exists because we believe leaders deserve more than survival.
We all deserve transformation.
