Celebrating our H1 2026 Elephant Riders: 14 leaders, 11 countries
There's a moment in every certification review where we stop reading the application and start picturing the room it describes. A leadership team somewhere in the world, cards on the table, someone saying out loud how they actually want to feel at work. That moment is why the ECD Certified Pathway exists. Every badge below represents dozens of those rooms, and the ripples from each one travel further than any of us often get to see.
In the first half of 2026, fourteen leaders across eleven countries reached new milestones on the pathway, from Sri Lanka to Scotland, Ghana to Aotearoa New Zealand. Before the names, we feel it matters to say this. These badges are not certificates of attendance. They are proof of practice. Each one was earned by facilitating real emotional culture conversations inside real organisations, across our Culture, Change, Stakeholder and Leadership specialities.
The badge unlocks
Senior Elephant Riders
- Azeem Saheer, Culture, Sri Lanka
- Erika Barden, Culture, Auckland, New Zealand
- Clare Lundon, Culture, Wellington, New Zealand
- Sue Schulte, Leadership, Cleveland, Ohio
- Jolina Kahn, Change, Philippines
Advanced Elephant Rider
- Tara-Lee Ainsworth, Change, Toronto, Canada
Rising Elephant Riders
- Kim Woolner, Culture, Aberdeen, Scotland
- Zainab Iqbal, Culture, Bahrain
A special mention for Jolina, who unlocked Senior Leadership, Advanced and Senior Change, and Advanced Stakeholder in a single quarter. Extraordinary going.
In their own words
Every application carries lines that stop us in our tracks. Two from this half.
"When the focus shifts to emotions rather than opinions or performance, people who wouldn't usually speak up can find their voice and change the direction of the conversation."
Kim Woolner, Rising ECD Culture Practitioner
"I love, love, LOVE using The ECD to unlock the potential of people and teams and help set them up for success."
Erika Barden, Senior ECD Culture Practitioner
Our seven new ECD Certified Consultants
This half also brought a milestone from the deep end of the pathway. Seven practitioners completed the ECD Certified Consultant Development Programme: Jolina Kahn (Philippines), Anne Koopmann-Schmidt (Cologne, Germany), Paul Bulos (London, United Kingdom), Benjamin Manu (Accra, Ghana), Mary Chieu-Kwuan Loh (Singapore), Chelsea Lang (Newcastle, Australia) and Wayne Sim (Singapore). We feel enormous pride writing every one of those names.
The Certified Consultant Development Programme is twelve months exploring the whole Emotional Culture System and the intersection of all four specialties, Culture, Change, Stakeholder and Leadership. Twelve months of monthly coaching calls across brutal time zones, deep personal reflection, real client work and the courage to share all of it with a cohort of peers.
Most of all, it moves practitioners beyond one-off workshops and into designing and delivering programmes of work that move the emotions that drive performance. That is a different kind of craft. And somewhere in the middle of the year, the programme quietly goes to work on the person too.
Their final reflections say it better than we ever could.
"I enrolled as a professional. I graduated as a better father, partner, and friend."
Benjamin Manu
"I have moved from using The ECD as a facilitation tool to seeing it as a full consulting system that can drive sustainable culture change across entire organisations."
Anne Koopmann-Schmidt
"The ECD is lodged in an unusual space between feeling and thought – I think about how I feel and I feel what I am thinking."
Mary Chieu-Kwuan Loh
Thank you
To all fourteen of you, thank you for the courage it takes to lead these conversations, and for trusting this work with your practice and your growth. If you work with one of these Elephant Riders, you are in remarkable hands.
And if you are curious about walking a similar path, from your first free conversation tool through to ECD Certified Consultant and the Master Elephant Rider, the whole journey starts with a single conversation and a deck of cards. And then take it beyond a workshop to designing entire programmes & experiences at the intersection of culture, change, leadership, and customer experience. That moves the emotions that drive people's and teams' performance.
Behind every badge is a leader who is rehumanising the workplace, one f-word conversation at a time.
