The membership that takes you from associate dean to the deanship
A private, year-round community where the hardest decisions in academic leadership get made with people who've sat in your exact seat.
You were promoted on scholarship. Now you're judged on management.
The peers you lost, restored
When you took the role, your community became your reports. Your Executive Circle gives you back 6 to 8 peers who know your name, your school, and what this year actually demanded of you.
The training the promotion never came with
Budgets, evaluations, crisis weeks, hard conversations. The skills nobody handed you when they handed you the title. Taught by people who hold the role.
Built for the 8 percent problem
Only 8 percent of deans say they have time for their own development. So we built this for the calendar you actually have. One hour a month. Everything else on demand.
A circle matched to exactly where you sit.
Your Executive Circle is matched to where you sit now, and you move up through the rooms as your career does. Same community, every step of the path. Executive Circles are part of Executive Circle Membership.
Pioneers
The frontline of academic leadership. People, programs, and performance. Where you build the foundation for the role you're growing into.
Request an invite to the next Pioneers event →Navigators
The center of operations, strategy, and execution. Faculty, budgets, accreditation, and programs all at once. The most demanding seat in the building gets a standing circle only here.
Request an invite to the next Navigators event →Deanovators
Ultimate responsibility for vision, resources, and direction. A confidential room for the decisions only deans face.
Request an invite to the next Deanovators event →Why your Executive Circle changes everything.
Most networks hand you a directory and wish you luck. Your Executive Circle is the opposite.
It's a small, curated room of leaders in your exact seat. Chosen on purpose. Led by Lisa. Built to solve the problems you can't take anywhere else, with the people who actually understand them.
Same 6 to 8 peers. Every month. For as long as you stay.
A curated room, by design
You're matched with 6 to 8 peers who actually move your thinking. Same seat, similar stakes, and no competitors from your own institution. Lisa hand-picks the room so every voice around the table earns its place.
Facilitated and coached by Lisa Leander
This isn't a leaderless group chat. Lisa leads every circle in person. Twenty years across six continents in business education, in the room with you each month, keeping the conversation honest and moving.
Monthly masterminds on your real issues
Each month the room goes deep on what's actually keeping you up. The budget fight. The personnel crisis. The dean search. You bring the hard thing, the room works it with you, and you leave with a plan.
Solutions, with the right connections
We're built to solve, not to vent. When your problem needs a person, Lisa knows who. She makes the introductions that turn your trickiest problem into your next move.
Everything in one year-round membership.
Role-matched Executive Circles
A standing group of 6 to 8 peers in your exact role, meeting monthly at a time that works for you.
Monthly workshops
Expert-led, practical, and built from the actual conversations happening inside the circles.
Virtual summits
Multi-day deep dives on the issues moving careers right now. Always included, never an upsell.
On-demand library
Every workshop and summit, recorded and ready. Learn at 2am if that's when your hour appears.
Private community & app
Your always-on room to ask the question you can't ask anyone at your own institution.
Leadership visibility
Panels, contributions, and introductions that put you in front of the people who open doors.
The community in your back pocket.
Your membership comes with a private community and mobile app, so the people who get it are always one tap away.
An active discussion forum
Hundreds of members ready to help, right when you need them. Post a question at 11pm and wake up to real answers from people who have been there.
A full resource library
Templates, recordings, and tools you can actually use, all in one place, ready whenever you are.
An event calendar
Every convening, workshop, and summit in one view, so you never miss what matters.
Workshops built from the questions you can't ask out loud.
These aren't recycled keynotes. We design them from what we hear inside the Executive Circles. So they answer the problems keeping our members up at night, taught by people who hold the role. Here are the sessions members ask for most.
Your First 90 Days as Dean
The role you were never trained for, broken into the first three months. What to assess, who to meet, and the early mistakes that take years to undo.
Fundraising & Donor Relations, Without the Dread
How to build a pipeline, run the ask, and steward relationships, even if you've never raised a dollar in your life.
Reading & Defending Your Budget
Enrollment volatility, contraction, and the conversations with the provost that decide your year. Walk in prepared instead of blindsided.
Leading Through a Crisis Week
The political interference, the personnel emergency, the public moment. A playbook for the weeks the job outgrows any one person.
The Path to the Deanship
What search committees actually look for, how interim roles become permanent ones, and how to build the sponsorship network you were never handed.
Accreditation Without Losing Your Mind
The cycles, the standards, the documentation. Managed so it doesn't consume the rest of your role.
Building a Leadership Team You Actually Like
Hiring, delegating, and managing the people who used to be your peers.
Make Your Case: Visibility & Your Professional Brand
Why hiding in your office no longer protects you, and how to be seen by the people deciding what comes next.
Hard Conversations With Faculty
Evaluations, underperformance, and conflict. Handled with a spine and without burning the relationship.
AI, Curriculum & the Disruption Already Here
What forward-looking business schools are doing now, so you're leading the change instead of reacting to it.
And the archive comes with you.
Every live workshop is recorded and waiting inside your membership. Join today and the entire library is yours, including the session you didn't know you needed until this week.
Join WIBEYou never arrive alone.
WIBE is not only virtual. We bring members together at the conferences you already attend, and in the cities worth exploring. A palace in Vienna. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Deep dish in Chicago. We connect members globally, so there is always a familiar face waiting when you walk in.
You're not expected to have all the answers here.
- Think more clearly in moments of uncertainty
- Feel less isolated in leadership
- Make better decisions with peer input
- Build confidence during a transition or a step up
- Stay connected to a broader leadership perspective
- Show up exactly as you are
A year in the room.
What members say about the room.
The issues tackled in WIBE convenings are timely and real. I consistently leave with insights that help me lead more confidently.
Dean, Washington State University
You can be brilliant alone, but you are unstoppable in WIBE.
Associate Vice Provost & Dean of the John Martinson Honors College, Purdue University
Real community in WIBE is not about comfort. It is about challenge, raw honesty, and growth.
Associate Dean, University of Montana
One decision. No committee required.
At a price an academic leader can decide on, and fund on their own or with institutional support. Most of our members are funded by their institution.
Membership
- All monthly workshops
- The full on-demand library
- Private community and mobile app
- All virtual summits
- In-Person Networking events
- Monthly member bulletin
Executive Circle Membership
- Your role-matched Executive Circle. A 9-month intensive with 6 to 8 peers in your exact seat, meeting monthly.
- One hour of 1:1 strategic advising with Lisa on your visibility opportunities.
- Conference matching, so you show up where the right people already are.
Most members expense membership through their professional development funds. Ask us for a one-page justification you can send your dean.
Which membership is right for you?
Regular Membership is the place to start if you want the network and the resources on your own time. It gives you access to the WIBE community, all workshops, courses, the on-demand library, and the member forum. It's right for you if you want to learn, connect, and tap into the community whenever you need it.
Executive Circle Membership is for going much deeper. You get everything in Membership, plus a curated circle of friends in your exact seat, monthly masterminds facilitated by Lisa, real accountability and honest feedback, and the introductions that solve your hardest problems. Choose this if you want depth, a trusted room, and people who walk the path with you, not just access.
Not sure? Start with Membership and move up to the Executive Circle whenever you're ready.
A few moments from the community.
Frequently asked.
What exactly is WIBE?
A private, year-round membership community for leaders in business education, from chairs to deans. We give you a standing room of peers in your exact seat and a path that runs from associate dean to the deanship.
What do I actually get?
Your monthly Executive Circle, all virtual summits, the full on-demand workshop library, the private community and app, event discounts, and a network that introduces you to exactly who you need to meet.
Can I check it out before I join?
Yes. Come to a monthly workshop as our guest. Email membership@wibenetwork.com to be added.
How much time does this take?
As much or as little as you have. The membership is built around one hour a month, with everything else on demand. No guilt if life gets busy.
What if I'm not a dean yet?
That's exactly who this is built for. Our Future Deaning circle and the annual Future Deans Summit are made for the leaders moving toward the role. You don't wait for the title to start preparing for it.
How is WIBE different from AACSB, HERS, or a fellowship?
Those are excellent, and many of our members value them too. They run programs with start and end dates, and most require a nomination or institutional sponsor. WIBE is the room between the programs. Ongoing, role-matched, and open to you without anyone's permission. We're still here in month thirteen, when the dean search opens.
Who is WIBE for?
Leaders in business education, from chairs to deans, women and men, who want a standing room of peers in their exact seat and a path that runs from associate dean to the deanship. WIBE stands for Where Imagination Builds Excellence. If that's you, you belong here.
How do group discounts work?
Two or more people from the same institution qualify. Email membership@wibenetwork.com before signing up and we'll send your discounted link.
For 20 years I worked with business school leaders across six continents, and I watched the doors stay closed to the people who needed them the most. So I built a new one.
WIBE exists so that no leader in business education has to do the hardest job of their career alone. If you're reading this, consider it your personal invitation.
Founder & CEO
You'd be in good company.
A few of the leaders already in the room.
Ready to stop leading alone?
One hour a month. A circle of peers in your exact seat. A path to where you're going.
Register as an individual member