Experienced Leaders Initiative

Rigorous exploration. Honest ambitions. Your next chapter, defined on your terms.

Who are you, when your title no longer defines you?

ELI was built for people who are post-career but far from finished, who have more to contribute but are no longer willing to contribute on someone else's terms. People who want their next chapter to be honest. Purposeful. Theirs.

What that looks like is different for everyone. You may want to lead, advise, create, or engage. You may want to stay relevant or give back, but at a scale and in a form that actually fits your life. ELI gives you the tools, the framework, and the space to figure out how your ambitions would look like.

The program

Over five months and three immersive on-campus modules, ELI brings together a select cohort of accomplished post-career leaders at the Yale School of Management. Led by Yale SOM faculty, domain experts, and professional coaches, the program combines rigorous inquiry, individualized coaching, and peer engagement to help you move from open questions to committed action.

ELI is sustained intellectual work designed for people who have already succeeded by conventional standards and are ready to bring that same attention to the questions only this phase of life can ask.

1. Clarity for Your Next Chapter: Through evidence-based frameworks, narrative inquiry, and individualized coaching, you'll develop a rigorous account of who you are and what you're building next.

2. Understanding and Shaping Society: Drawing on Yale SOM's research and faculty expertise, you'll engage seriously with the forces reshaping society and develop principled frameworks for deploying your resources with intention and impact.

3. Creative Expression and Immersive Experiences: Guided encounters with Yale's art, architecture, and cultural collections cultivate close observation, comfort with ambiguity, and the kind of integrative thinking that serious reinvention requires.

4. Building Connection for Your Next Chapter: Through structured peer engagement, facilitated reflection, and shared intellectual experience, you'll build a cohort defined by genuine trust, rigor, and mutual accountability.

You may arrive with a clear direction you want to pressure-test. You may arrive with only questions. You may want to change the world, or you may simply want to stay sharp, stay engaged, and build something that feels true to who you are now.

All of that belongs here.

What ELI asks is that you arrive ready to do serious work—and be willing to let that work surprise you.

You should apply to ELI if you are: