Building a Beautiful Business, leading not just efficiently, but beautifully, is a daily practice that requires trust, intimacy, and community.
We are leading in a world that no longer offers clarity on demand.
Information is abundant. Decisions are accelerated. AI amplifies speed, scale, and pressure — while judgment, attention, and orientation quietly erode.
Most leaders don’t lack knowledge.
They lack discernment, integration, and the ability to decide well under uncertainty.
For ten years, the House of Beautiful Business has worked inside this gap — convening leaders at moments of transition, experimenting with formats that privilege depth over performance, and treating leadership not as a role, but as a capacity exercised in real time.
The Beautiful Business School is a distillation of that work.
Not another framework to apply.
But a place to practice how leaders perceive, decide, and relate — in the world as it is now.
This is a different kind of learning experience.
Not designed to deliver more content, but to help you recognize and cultivate beauty in business — moving from confusion to clarity, from isolation to connection, and from routine to renewed purpose.
Over seven weeks, you engage in a guided, practice-based journey that weaves together individual inquiry, shared reflection, and collective sense-making.
At the center of the program is one real “Thing” — a question, tension, project, or leadership challenge you are already living with. You return to it week after week, seeing it anew through different lenses, and shaping it as your understanding deepens.
Each week follows a simple, deliberate rhythm:
→ The Drop — A written and audio letter, plus a Field Guide, introducing the archetype of the week and orienting your attention and practice.
→ The Field — Individual and peer-based exploration, supported by prompts, reflection, and a dedicated AI agent designed to deepen — not shortcut — your thinking.
→ The Gathering — A live, facilitated session bringing together peer exchange, embodied practice, guest voices, and collective inquiry.
Throughout the journey, you work with five leadership archetypes — not as roles to perform, but as capacities to embody:
→ The Groundbreaker — Befriend uncertainty and work with disruption to birth new possibilities
→ The Host — Create the conditions for meaningful encounters and genuine community
→ The Sapient — Integrate human and artificial intelligence with care and discernment
→ The Curator — Select, connect, and distill ideas into coherence and meaning
→ The Creator — Develop and test prototypes that bring beautiful business into lived reality
The journey culminates in a final integration, where what you’ve explored takes tangible form — something you can carry back into your work, your relationships, and the systems you shape.
This is not linear learning.
It is iterative, relational, and alive — designed to move with the complexity of real leadership, not away from it.
Meet Your Hosts
Tim Leberecht
Recognized as one of the most original and passionate voices for a more humanist future of business. He is a German-American entrepreneur, curator, and author, and the co-founder and co-CEO of the House of Beautiful Business. Tim worked in Silicon Valley, as the chief marketing officer of NBBJ, a global design and architecture firm, and, from 2006 to 2013, as the chief marketing officer of product design and innovation consultancy Frog Design. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, and his two TED Talks have been viewed more than three million times to date. He is the publisher of the Beauty Shot Substack and the author of the books The Business Romantic (Harper Business, 2015), The End of Winning (Droemer, 2020), and the forthcoming Supercuration (Basic/Hachette, 2027). Tim is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader.
Till Grusche
German entrepreneur and the co-founder and co-CEO of the House of Beautiful Business. He has lived and worked in Amsterdam, San Francisco, London, Munich, Berlin, and Istanbul, working with organizations to blend business goals with cultural imagination and translating ideas into meaningful experiences. Earlier in his career, Till served as global head of marketing at Frog Design, VP of marketing and business Development at Huge, and chief marketing officer at Carpooling, at the time Europe’s largest ride-sharing platform. He brings to his work a punk spirit—literally: he has been the singer in a punk rock band for much of his life—which reflects his belief in authenticity and emotional intensity as engines of transformation.
Tevis Rose Trower
A leadership strategist, author, and facilitator recognized as one of the most original voices on conscious leadership. She is the founder and CEO of Balance Integration, which for over twenty years has guided senior executives and organizations—including Disney, Chanel, Bloomberg, and the NBA—in aligning culture, performance, and purpose. Tevis has designed and led programs for HBR Events, YPO, and Fast Company Innovation Festival, and previously taught Creativity in Business at New York University. Known for blending leadership science with contemplative traditions, Tevis helps leaders move beyond models and maps to meet the human being underneath. A sought-after keynote speaker, she is the author of The Game-Changer’s Guide to Radical Success and has been recognized by Forbes as a “New Millennium Guru” and “a breath of fresh air in leadership.”
Meet our Special Guests
Maryam Banikarim
Maryam Banikarim is an Emmy Award–winning storyteller, convener, and seasoned C-suite executive with more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of leadership, culture, and community. She has held senior leadership roles at some of the world’s most influential organizations, including Chief Marketing Officer of Hyatt Hotels Corporation and executive roles at Fortune Media, Nextdoor, Gannett, NBCUniversal, and Univision. Most recently, she revitalized Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and Brainstorm Tech communities. In 2023, she led the award-winning WE ❤️ NYC campaign for The Partnership for New York City. Maryam co-founded NYCNext, producing large-scale cultural moments such as A Moment for Broadway and the Emmy-winning video of Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind. She is also the founder of The Longest Table, a free, nationwide potluck movement designed to strengthen neighborhood connection through simple acts of togetherness.
Whitney Clapper
Whitney Clapper is a cultural strategist and community leader working at the intersection of climate action, storytelling, and regenerative systems. She brings more than two decades of experience supporting community-centered change, with a particular focus on land, food systems, and long-term resilience. Over the last 10 years, she held senior leadership roles at Patagonia, leading Global Community Relationships and Impact. Whitney is currently Executive Director of the Farmhand Foundation, where her work sits at the convergence of culture, climate, and agriculture. She builds coalitions across business, Indigenous leadership, and regenerative farming to restore ecosystems, strengthen local economies, and re-localize food systems in service of resilient, self-determined communities. Across her work, Whitney’s values are expressed through practice: a commitment to relationship over extraction, justice as inseparable from environmental action, and land-based and Indigenous knowledge as essential guides for the future.
Michael Bungay Stanier
Michael Bungay Stanier is an acclaimed author, speaker, and leadership coach, famous for founding Box of Crayons, a firm teaching practical coaching skills, and writing the million-selling book The Coaching Habit, helping leaders shift from advice-giving to curiosity-led engagement, earning him accolades like the Thinkers50 Coaching Award and #1 coaching thought leader status. He is the author of eight books, including How to Begin and How to Work With (Almost Anyone) that have sold more than two million copies. A Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Oxford and Australian National University, this Australian-Canadian expert empowers millions to unlock potential through better questions, focusing on practical, human-centered development.
Eva Vaslamatzi
Eva Vaslamatzi is a curator, editor, and writer based in Athens. She has curated exhibitions and performative events across public and private institutions, nonprofit organizations, and public spaces, with a particular emphasis on new commissions developed through collective processes and sustained exchange. Her work has been supported by numerous fellowships, including the NEON Curatorial Exchange in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation ARTWORKS Fellowship in Curating. She has held curatorial residencies at SAHA in Istanbul, Onassis AiR in Athens, and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. From 2022 to 2023, Eva served as a teaching assistant in the Department of Culture, Creative Media, and Industries at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece.
Meryem Lahrichi
Meryem Lahrichi designs curiosity-driven gatherings at the intersection of culture, education, business, and human connection. With her studio, The Process Experiences, she designs and produces learning journeys, gatherings, and cultural experiences across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Her work spans collaborations with global partners such as UNICEF, African Leadership Group, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, and The Grierson Collection, and since 2024, she has been actively collaborating with the House of Beautiful Business. A U.S. Young Professional Fellow and former AIESEC Member Committee alumna, Meryem also enjoys to speak and moderate conversations, including GITEX Africa, the World Youth Forum, Polyopportunity Series and Pullman xChange with the House of Beautiful Business.
AI is remaking the world of work at astonishing speed, taking on tasks once performed by humans. But while machines may analyze, optimize, and even “think,” they cannot imagine, foster intimacy, or lead beautifully.
Even before AI, our workplaces were strained: belonging was often hollow, empathy was in short supply, imagination was stifled, and meaning was often lost in the race for efficiency.
Now, as intelligent systems take on more and more of what we once did ourselves, the pressure on human leaders is greater than ever.
These aren’t abstract observations—data shows just how urgently leaders are being tested.
→ 92% of executives believe AI adoption will fundamentally redefine leadership roles in their organizations (Gartner, 2025).
→ 76% of employees say they expect their leaders to demonstrate greater emotional intelligence as AI scales (Gallup, 2024).
→ Fortune Magazine reports 42% of employees say their stress is induced by fear and uncertainty in the world, and 68% report a dip in productivity, according to a July 2025 study.
→ A recent MIT study on generative AI warns that short-term productivity gains come at the cost of diminished reasoning, imagination, and memory.
As machines optimize everything they can, the most important work for us humans will be the kind of work that must be done beautifully rather than efficiently—work that connects, creates, and regenerates, not merely extracts.
Human qualities remain essential for organizations and individuals to thrive in the long term: imagination, creativity, empathy, resilience, and critical thinking. But these qualities must now be cultivated in symbiosis with technology, as we increasingly co-exist, co-evolve, and co-create with AI.
Drawing from ten years of groundbreaking work by the House of Beautiful Business and its community of more than 30,000 professionals worldwide, this new online learning program offers orientation in a time of uncertainty and confusion, and provides you with a comprehensive, decidedly humanist playbook for thriving in a more-than-human world.
The class is designed for leaders, managers, founders, solopreneurs, investors, and nonprofit professionals from diverse industries, backgrounds, and generations who:
→ Seek more from their work than efficiency or bottom-line thinking
→ Are ready to move beyond business-as-usual, letting go of existing models to make space for the new
→ See business as a force for meaning-making, connection, and positive change
→ Want to learn how integrate all forms of intelligence with insights from psychology, neuroscience, behavioral science, and wisdom practices
→ Long for an authentic community of peers who share their values
It is especially relevant for:
Mid- to Senior-Level Executives
Senior directors, functional leads, and business unit decision-makers navigating uncertainty, hybrid work, and evolving team dynamics—where adaptive, human-centered leadership is most urgently needed.
Transformation and People Leaders
HR, L&D, DEI, and culture leaders developing the humanist capacities required to build future-ready, resilient organizations.
Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, and Nonprofit Leaders
Mission-driven founders and nonprofit leaders balancing purpose, innovation, impact, and profitability in a rapidly shifting landscape shaped by AI and other disruptions.
Cross-Disciplinary Professionals
Artists, technologists, educators, and strategists working at the intersection of business, beauty, and imagination.
House of Beautiful Business Community Members
Past participants looking to extend the spirit, intimacy, and creativity of HoBB gatherings into their daily leadership and organizational life.
