AAIE Leadership Masterminds

Registration for New Cohorts is open now! Register below.

Since launching in early 2020, AAIE and the Big Questions Institute have collaborated on twelve Mastermind leadership development cohorts. These 1-hour per month meetings offer a relaxed opportunity for leaders to bring forward their biggest challenges in a trust-based environment among peers. Through this partnership many leaders have worked through their most vexing questions, from personnel challenges they couldn’t discuss with colleagues on their campuses, to preparing for their own leadership transitions, and much more. Leadership can be lonely. Let’s change that!

About Masterminds

Over the years, the AAIE community has learned that leaders do better when we break out of isolation and learn in conversation and community. And the challenges keep coming.

Since early 2020, AAIE-sponsored Mastermind groups have offered numerous international school leaders a safe, trusted, provocative space for honest discussions around personal and professional topics of their choosing. In monthly virtual meetings, we’ve shared problems, designed solutions, and offered support to one another in ways that energize and grow capacity to lead into the future. 

AAIE Masterminds builds on protocols used in similar leadership groups used in many other professional settings. Each month, one participant takes the “hotseat” to introduce a question or dilemma for feedback from the group. We also reserve time in each hourly session for open discussion of pressing questions, advice, and shared wins. Participants drive all of these conversations.

Both established and emerging leaders in the AAIE community have turned to their Mastermind cohort as a trusted professional network for working through some of the biggest challenges they face in their roles today. 

Leadership Masterminds 8.0

Registration now open for our 2025-26 cohorts of Leadership Masterminds led by Homa Tavangar and others of the BIG Questions Institute, which convenes in September 2025.

As part of a cohort you can expect to: 

• Break the isolation you might experience in your role by committing to regular monthly meetings and ongoing backchannel conversations with other international school leaders.
• Set goals, brainstorm and test ideas, and get feedback and support in a safe, trusting environment. 
• Build accountability to keep moving forward on your innovation and change plans, while gaining tools to confront obstacles. 
• Engage in an active learning and self-improvement process through conversations around articles, books, podcasts and other media from various fields. 

Don’t miss this acclaimed experience for fostering learning in an intimate atmosphere of trust, honesty and shared leadership. Find out why so many international school leaders rely on Masterminds for their personal and professional growth.

Space is limited in each cohort, and will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is open now. 

If you have any question contact AAIE at info@aaie.org.

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THE AAIE Masterminds Origin Story

The Masterminds program was born from a conversation in early 2020 among Mark Ulfers, Will Richardson, and Homa Tavangar. At the time, the Big Questions Institute—co-founded by Homa and Will—was just launching, and the group had planned to introduce the Masterminds initiative at the 2020 AAIE Conference in New York, with the first cohort scheduled to begin that March. What none of them could have anticipated was that the program would launch just as the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in global lockdowns. In that moment of unprecedented disruption, Masterminds quickly became a vital source of support for small cohorts of international school leaders.

Since that time, Homa and Will have guided 14 cohorts through an era marked by continuous crisis and transformation. As Will now steps back from his role with both the Big Questions Institute and Masterminds, we recognize and deeply appreciate his lasting contributions to the global leadership community. We also look forward with great enthusiasm to welcoming new coaches who will carry this work forward.