Register Now for April 2026 Cohort!

Network Leadership Series

What is the Network Leadership Series?

The Network Leadership Series (NLS) is a participatory learning journey designed to build your confidence and capability as a relational leader. Over eight weeks, a small cohort of practitioners from around the world explore strategies that amplify collaboration in networks, organizations, and teams.

Each session models participant engagement techniques and builds depth across three foundations: relational leadership, engaging participants, and catalyzing collaboration. During the series, you’ll share learnings with peers and practice applying frameworks for facilitating collaboration.

NLS is intended for leaders and consultants and conveners who actively support a network, systems change initiative, cross-sector collaborative, community of practice or coalition. If your success hinges on people connecting, coordinating, and co-creating, join us for NLS!

In addition to mixed cohorts, NLS can be customized for your group and delivered in-person or online.

Next Cohort Starts:
April 21, 2026

Tuesdays, 4:00-6:30pm GMT / 5:00-7:30pm SAST on Zoom

Learning Journey

I have been thoroughly enjoying the Network Leadership series. This has added a lot of value as a leader of a network organisation and also to our members.
— Sekai Chiwandamira,  Chapter Head, ANDE South Africa (NLS Alum)

A Relational Approach 

Life organizes in networks, and change happens through relationships. At this time, we need leaders who can unleash the collective creativity necessary to address complex challenges. Circle Generation’s NLS fosters capacities and capabilities to facilitate collaboration for collective flourishing.

Relational leaders see relationships, spot patterns, tend processes, and cultivate conditions for emergence of desired outcomes. 

This series embodies global perspectives. Our practices draw upon many ways of knowing. We value the dignity of all beings and are committed to making network leadership accessible to all.

The series includes the following three focus areas:

  • 1. Leading Relationally

    Focus on the sensibilities and mindset shifts needed to foster a network approach to collaboration. Understand the network theory of change and how we leverage the key differences between organizations and networks to create impact.

  • 2. Engaging Participants

    Explores the different ways network members engage and how creating opportunities for people to connect and collaborate generates value.

  • 3. Catalyzing Collaboration

    Focus on coordination roles and how network weaving, communications framing, and project support contribute to network vitality.

Learning Outcomes

By completing the Network Leadership Series, you will:

  • Grow capability to steward impact networks and multi-stakeholder collaborations

  • Customize frameworks and practices to fit your context

  • Curate generative spaces for connection, participation, learning and co-creation

  • Frame communications to invite engagement and contribution

  • Continue exchanging with practitioners in the field

Who is NLS for?

The series is designed for leaders who are:

  • Serving as network steward, weaver, facilitator, manager, consultant or funder

  • Convening partners, stakeholders or grantees

  • Engaging diverse people across organizations and communities

  • Addressing complex challenges collectively

  • Facilitating systemic learning, healing, and change

  • Supporting decentralized teams to coordinate implementation

NLS is generally a fit for network stewards with 6 months to 6 years of experience—long enough to see patterns and share stories, and ready to translate frameworks to practice.

We’re all involved in networks because we believe in the power of people to change things together. NLS has revitalized my belief that so much is possible together and given me a language to share that this work doesn’t happen alone.
— Jo Gray, Youth Business International, 2023

Schedule & Details

NLS Schedule

All sessions will be held on Tuesdays at 4:00pm GMT / 5:00pm SAST. See what time this is in your time zone.

Week of 13th April: 60-min Weaving Call
(optional, to be scheduled upon registration)

April 21: Orientation & Learning Culture (90 minutes)

April 28: Relational Leadership (2.5 hours)

May 5: Relational Leadership (2.5 hours)

May 12: Engaging Participants (2.5 hours)

May 19: Engaging Participants (2.5 hours)

May 26: Catalyzing Collaboration (2.5 hours)

June 2: Catalyzing Collaboration (2.5 hours)

June 9: Culmination (90 minutes)

Weaving Calls

All participants will be invited to join one of five weaving calls the week of April 13th. These optional 60-minute conversations offer a chance to share about your work and learning objectives with a small group of participants and the facilitation team. What we learn in these calls help us adapt our examples to be relevant to participants' contexts. Participants also have an opportunity to experience weaving calls, which are a key part of network practice.

Pricing

Our pricing is tiered to ensure accessibility across incomes and industries. Please choose the level that aligns with your resources.

Standard Pricing - $2,200.00
(This tier is intended for corporations, foundations, government leaders, or similar.)

Accessible Pricing - $1,250.00 
(This tier is intended for NGOs, community based organizations, or similar.)

All participants receive: 

  • 20 hour program

  • Ongoing secure access to video recordings of each session

  • Ongoing secure access to NLS Foundations summary and resources for each module

  • Impact Networks book by David Ehrlichman (encouraged pre-read)

  • Weekly recap reflection questions and practice suggestions

  • Connection to practitioners in your cohort

Co-Learning & Scholarships

Collective learning sinks deeper and ripples father!  We offer a 20% co-learning discount if you’d like to join with one or more colleagues from your network or team. Please contact us prior to registering for details.

To ensure equity and include diverse perspectives, we offer a limited number of partial tuition scholarships, reducing payment to 20-50% of the affordable price. Please contact nls@circlegeneration.com to inquire.

Network Leadership Series Facilitators

Network Leadership Series was originally developed by Carri Munn and collaborators from the Converge Network in 2020. Informed by their work in the field and the practitioners in each cohort, Nono Sekhoto and Carri have been iterating and refining the curriculum to bring you the most relevant learnings and up-to-date practice methods.

  • Carri Munn bio

    Carri Munn

    Carri is a systems strategist and masterful facilitator who partners with systems change leaders to cultivate thriving organizations and networks. Her clients include regional and global networks, coordination teams, and executives. She brings a bright spirit of generosity, detail-orientation, and a patient, caring essence that facilitates a relaxed state among individuals while navigating change.

    She is based in Portland, Oregon and enjoys working globally. Carri holds a BA in Political Theory and a MA in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management. She is certified as a True Purpose Coach for individuals and organizations.

  • Nono Sekhoto bio

    Nono Sekhoto

    Nono is an experienced network coordinator, facilitator, and stakeholder engagement manager leading in the intersection of Africa’s agri-food system and systems change. Her work leverages building relationships to collaborate on curating enabling environments that foster co-learning, resources, and opportunity sharing, around shared value. Nono had the unique pleasure of attending the NLS as a participant in 2020 and had time to implement the learning in her work as a network coordinator. Since 2022 Nono has joined NLS as a facilitator incorporating her work experience into the curriculum. She is based in South Africa with access to a global network in agriculture and the network practice ecosystem.

    She holds a BCom in Financial Accounting, a few certificates in business management and development, and is currently enrolled in a master's program in international agribusiness.

  • Iman Bashir bio

    Iman Bashir

    Iman is a Kenyan foresight researcher and facilitator with an interdisciplinary background in law and environmental science. Her systems-oriented work explores how social, economic, and environmental forces shape how we understand the present and imagine the future. Grounded in research and guided by people, she designs and facilitates spaces that help individuals and institutions engage meaningfully with long-term systemic questions, with a particular focus on how power and participation influence who gets to shape the future.

    Iman works globally, with a strong focus on African contexts, through collaborations with the School of International Futures, UNICEF, and other partners. Her recent projects include rethinking migration governance with the International Organization for Migration, supporting sustainable energy planning in Kenya, and managing a global network of young climate futurists that brought futures tools into the climate negotiations at COP27.

What Participants Are Saying