A 5-Day Leadership Process in Piemonte, Italy
September 28 – October 2, 2026

An exclusive, immersive leadership experience for professionals in the creative industries who carry responsibility and shape direction. With a maximum of 10 participants, the process is intentionally intimate, informal and individual driven, allowing for depth, precision, and meaningful exchange.

During these days, you will:
• Clarify your unique leadership style and your capacity to create impact
• Define the next steps for your professional path and key projects
• Explore your role within the wider transformations of your field
• Sharpen your vision and strategic direction for the future

Through a carefully guided process, you will gain new insight into your work and leadership, develop practices you can carry forward, and leave with concrete strategies—ready to act with clarity and confidence.

The situation in the creative industries

Across every corner of the creative industries, including architecture, film, media, design, fashion, art, museums, research, business development etc. profound changes are unfolding. People taking a lead are often navigating the tension between finding a professional stance that serves the form of quality they aspire, their wish to serve the organisational context they work in, and the drive towards building new opportunities. 

Effective leadership is never one-size-fits-all — it is always shaped by the specific context in which we work. One of the greatest resources for people in the creative fields is learning from each other’s experiences. Being among peers help you understand the value of your own position and gives you new ideas for growth and prosperity.

You will experience:

• A new conceptual frame based on agential realism and french psychoanalysis to understand yourself and your work - and how you create value.
• Ideas to how you can develop yourself in your professional role and your professional platform to grow your capacity and built new sustainable professional platforms.
• A group of like-minded to reflect your insights and inspire you.
• Individual sessions to help you focus on your own challenges and opportunities.
• Time and space to slow down and see what comes up.
• Italian food and wine enjoyed with sweeping views over a lush green valley.

What you will take home:

Greater clarity and confidence in your leadership approach.
Awareness of the beliefs and actions that may be limiting your impact.
A practical action plan to move you and your projects forward.

The Program

This course is designed as a complete process that unfolds in three phases. It gets it's impact by combining personal reflection, group learning, and new theoretical and methodological insights with carefully designed training sessions and peer feedback.

Before – Prepare & Align

Online session with Thea Mikkelsen where we focus your goals for the process.

Online kick-off session.

3 hours of self-study with curated course material to prepare for the La Cassera meeting.

The La Cassera Leadership Process (5 days in Italy)

Presentations on leadership to help you find your own language for the professional projects you lead.

Intensive training and guided reflection on own leadership project.

A balance of individual exploration, group dialogue, and structured leadership development.

After – Integrate & Apply

Online session to reflect, integrate, and continue your momentum.

Final online session with Thea Mikkelsen to refine your leadership action plan and next steps.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

The theoretical perspective on leadership you will be introduced to during the course will help you understand yourself not only as a leader - but also as a change maker or innovator. You will be supported in reflecting on how your leadership shapes the environment around you as well as how your environment facilitates (and influences) your work - and how you want to explore that interrelatedness.

Drawing from systems thinking, psychoanalysis, social theory, organisational psychology and leadership literature the course will present contemporary ideas about how we organise and perform as members of both social and non-human systems. You will be presented to ideas of agential realism, situated knowledges, and geontologies to facilitate a thinking of how we are entangled in our professional material-discursive practices, and are called to find our own ethical position from where to create results for us and our projects.

The philosophical base of the course will be translated into actionable and understandable concepts that will give us a common language to discuss and understand the individual leadership projects.

Everyone meeting the requirements for participation listed below can participate and there is no expectation of prior knowledge.

Head of program: Thea Mikkelsen, chartered leadership psychologist
Executive advisor in leadership and innovation

Leadership coach and professional development designer with over 15 years of experience, specialized in leadership and collaboration in complex professional environments across Europe

Master in Psychology & Master in Cultural Studies, MA & MSc,

Former external lecturer at Department of Psychology, KU and at Master in Organisational Psychology, RUC, DK.

Board member ISPSO – International Society for the Psychoanalytical Study of Organisations 2020-23.

Author of four books on professional creativity – the latest Coaching the Creative Impulse – Psychological Dynamics and Professional Creativity, Routledge 2020.

Lives in Italy with her husband and two daughters.
Works in Copenhagen one week every month.

Co-facilitator: Sune Bjørnvig, communication and impact advisor

Executive advisor in leadership and communication
Partner FRIDAY

Communication expert and international advisor with over 15 years’ experience supporting executives and specialists in complex, high-stakes environments.

Master of political science from the University of Copenhagen and Stockholm University with a background as an actor and director in theatre.

Work spans leadership, executive communication, cross-cultural leadership and crisis communication.

Partner in Copenhagen based communication agency FRIDAY.  

Has trained over 1,000 individuals across diverse industries and coached and advised leaders from more than 50 countries. Helps senior executives, leaders and board members craft messaging in moments of change, sustain trust under pressure and align their voice with strategic intent.

Servings

Piemonte is renowned for its exceptional cuisine and wines, and during the course, you’ll enjoy a specially crafted local, seasonal menu prepared by our chef.

Meals Include:

• Breakfast: Continental style with tea, coffee, yogurt, cereals, bread, and eggs

• Lunch: Vegetarian Italian dishes featuring beans, lentils, and fresh seasonal greens

• Dinner: Primo with classic pastas and risottos, Secondo with vegetables and meat, followed by Dolce