Immersive, Unforgettable, Custom Retreats & Offsites
The most successful corporate offsites are immersive, experiential, memorable, & relevant - all the same time.
Our corporate and institutional clients rely on us to make their offsites, strategy sessions, workshops, and retreats uniquely impactful.
Corporate Offsite Types
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Extended Offsites & Retreats
Half-day to three-day sessions designed to advance corporate strategic priorities, deepen and enhance corporate culture, and boost executive performance on key leadership competencies & core skills (e.g., strategic planning, leading teams, communication)
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Coaching, Training, & Workshops
Structured, intensive, one-on-one and small group development engagements, anchored in a benchmarking assessment and research, with clear near-term and longer-term development objectives as well as follow-up to confirm goal accomplishment
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Corporate Fellowships
These multi-stage programs combine elements of assessment, development, coaching, & mentorship for high-performing corporate teams (executive teams, high potential cohorts, etc.) to drive both individual and team performance. Can also be done for an open-enrollment group, e.g., a set of portfolio CEOs or a cohort of CEOs from a common industry
Centerpiece Elements at Ascent-Led Offsites & Programs
Go beyond the stereotypical lectures, panels, and keynote speakers
Experiential Simulations
Refined through delivery at world-class venues and delivered in partnership with world-leading experts and institutions, Ascent’s large-scale simulations enable groups to grapple with complexity in experiential and memorable ways.
Illustratively, Ascent collaborated with Stanford Law School, the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, and several of their corporate sponsors to lead an innovative, experiential CEO selection simulation at the 31st Annual Stanford Directors’ College.
Heatmaps & Interactive Labs
Ascent’s immersive heatmaps, interactive labs, and other customized, experimental programs often serve as the centerpiece of corporate offsites and institutional events.
For example, the Investment Heatmap is an interactive Shark Tank/Dragon’s Den-style exercise, pioneered at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, where participants are initially divided into teams to pitch investment & business expansion ideas. In later rounds of the workshop, teams then allocate scarce resources between the various investment and expansion options, culminating in an exploration of strategic priorities and decisions.
Ascent has recently delivered tailored versions of the Heatmap at the Global Philanthropy Forum and global client offsite retreats.
Strategy Workshops
Using a variety of tools, Ascent’s experienced facilitators work with a variety of corporate, private equity, and other clients to focus on companies’ key priorities and strategic concerns.
For example, adapted from the McKinsey “portfolio of options” toolkit, three-horizon planning workshops allow senior management and investor teams to articulate investment/strategy options and align on a set of short-, medium-, and long-term priorities.
These workshops are particularly valuable in serving Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies as part of pre- and post-M&A activity, launching new corporate teams, and aligning new senior leadership teams with investment deal priorities.
