Traverse
A cross-company program for senior executives moving into enterprise roles.
Traverse combines the outside-in perspective of a fully external cohort with the inside-out relationships built on real work. Three partner companies, five leaders each, ten months — starting with a two-day Basecamp in New York City, followed by virtual sessions and rotating site visits that end with a capstone graduation.
Request a conversationThe problem this design solves
Two things senior development usually forces you to choose between.
Sending individuals to a fully external cohort delivers outside-in exposure and forfeits inside-out relationships. Running a program internally delivers the second and forfeits the first.
Traverse is built to deliver both at once — and at a cohort size that matches the actual successor population.
- Outside-inExposure to leaders at the same level in other companies — the perspective an internal program cannot manufacture.
- Inside-outWorking the matrix horizontally on real challenges with colleagues from across your own business — the development need most commonly named across successor populations.
Three core elements
Adapted from a proven cross-company architecture.
01
Basecamp in NYC
A two-day immersive opening in New York City. Catalytic by design — leaders are taken out of their day-to-day, bonded into a high-trust cohort, and launched into action-learning projects that carry the rest of the program.
02
Action Learning Project
A five-person team from the same company works a real strategic challenge for their own business, supported by an internal action-learning coach who surfaces the leadership lessons as the work happens.
03
Cross-Company Site Visits
Rotating site visits at each partner company, bookended by virtual sessions. Leaders see other businesses from the inside, consult on each other's projects, and build relationships that outlast the program.
Every leader belongs to two groups
Three company action-learning teams. Five cross-company consulting groups.
Company action-learning team
All five members from the same company, working shoulder to shoulder with colleagues from different parts of the business — building exactly the horizontal matrix relationships senior leaders need.
Cross-company consulting group
One member from each of the three partner companies, forming five groups that consult across companies throughout the program — each leader bringing a different vantage point to the same challenge.
Each leader holds two memberships: one company team and one consulting group.
Program objectives
Build the mindset and capability to lead at enterprise scale.
01
Grow leaders against your success profile
Grounded in your senior leader competency model rather than a generic framework.
02
Network leaders horizontally — inside and across industries
Peers from different parts of the business, plus external peers over ten months.
03
Deliver a real business outcome, not only a learning outcome
Each company team scopes and solves a live strategic challenge, sponsored by its own senior leadership.
04
Give leaders an external lens on their own organization
Peer consultation from people with no stake in internal politics and no shared blind spots.
The ten-month journey
Basecamp in New York, then virtual sessions and site visits at each partner company.
Months 0–1
Prepare
Sponsor and coach alignment across partner companies. Assessment battery anchored to the success profile. Facilitated debrief and development goal set with the manager. Company teams frame candidate projects and secure executive sponsors.
Month 2
Basecamp in NYC
Two days together in New York City. The cohort builds trust, confirms projects, and launches the rhythm of work that will carry the next ten months.
Months 3–5
Virtual Session + Site Visit A
A virtual sprint to share progress and sharpen the challenge, followed by a hosted site visit at Company A — the first inside-out look at a partner's business.
Months 6–8
Virtual Session + Site Visit B
Another virtual session to consult across companies, followed by a site visit at Company B — deepening peer relationships and widening the external lens.
Months 9–10
Virtual Session + Capstone at Company C
Final virtual sprint, then the cohort convenes at Company C for the capstone graduation. Each team presents outcomes, and the cohort transitions into the EdgePoint alumni network.
At a glance
The program in numbers.
10
Months
3
Partner companies
5
Leaders per company
15
Leaders per cohort
2
Day Basecamp in NYC
3
Hosted site visits
What each company puts in
Symmetrical commitment across partner companies.
Participants
Five senior executives on critical-role succession plans, drawn deliberately from different parts of the business.
An executive sponsor
One senior leader who sets the action-learning challenge, meets the team two or three times, and receives the capstone.
An internal action-learning coach
Attends a one-day certification on agile action learning and project framing, then supports their company team throughout.
Three hosted site visits
Each partner company hosts one visit — the mechanism through which leaders learn another business from the inside, with the final visit serving as the capstone graduation.
Manager participation
Each participant's manager attends a one-hour orientation and holds a check-in each sprint.
Cost is shared across partner companies, which is what makes a senior cohort of this size economically viable for any one of them.
Partner selection
The partners do design work no curriculum can do on its own.
Traverse cohorts are curated as small consortia of three companies whose operating challenges rhyme without competing. The partner mix is chosen deliberately — close enough to share a language, different enough to bring genuinely different answers.
Where one partner has lived a discipline the others are working to embed, that peer-to-peer transfer becomes the program's single most distinctive feature.
A third track remains available alongside Traverse: individual leaders may be placed into the fully external Ascent cohort, for development best served by going out alone.
Alongside Ascent
Faculty
Led by faculty with deep executive experience.
Traverse is led by EdgePoint faculty and senior coaches trained in contemporary leadership transformation, working alongside internal action-learning coaches from each partner company.
Faculty embed
Faculty who spend time in your business.
Traverse faculty spend meaningful time inside each partner company before Basecamp — meeting sponsors, sitting in on strategy conversations, and calibrating sprint content and the competency emphasis to what the business actually needs.
The result is a program that is grounded in your context — not one delivered from the outside and hoping to translate.
Exploring a cross-company cohort for 2027?
Traverse cohorts are built partner by partner, in the year before they launch. We are glad to explore fit, partner mix, and cadence.