// Shackleton x Financial Times

The 2027 Leadership Expedition

A unique professional experience for leaders in times of uncertainty.

Shackleton has partnered with the Financial Times to deliver the ultimate leadership development programme for senior leaders and C-Suite executives, combining a polar expedition with business strategy to help leaders navigate increased adversity and uncertainty.

Today’s business leaders face heightened uncertainty on all fronts: geopolitics, economics, technology, security, environment and more.

An expedition mindset can help equip leaders to plan and manage unexpected events as an operational norm. With the right approach, preparation and earned resilience, leaders can summon the judgement, adaptability and humanity for which Sir Ernest Shackleton has become globally renowned.

The FT Shackleton Leadership Expedition is a unique leadership development programme for executives looking to develop their personal and professional capabilities in the majestic polar wilderness of Norway's Hardangervidda National Park.

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// Shackleton x Financial Times

Finse, Norway - the historic training ground for leaders and explorers

The five-day program is based at the iconic Finse 1222 hotel in central Norway, a unique location steeped in exploration history and offering stylish Norwegian hospitality to today’s adventurers.

Finse served as the training ground for Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen during the Heroic Age of Exploration over a century ago. Located high in the spectacular Hardangervidda National Park and accessible only by the Oslo-Bergen snow train, the Finse region closely resembles Antarctic topography and conditions, making it the first choice for polar preparation then and now.

// Shackleton x Financial Times

Shackleton demonstrated that the measure of a leader is not what they achieve when everything goes to plan, but who they are and how they behave when everything falls apart.

Ernest Shackleton’s leadership over a series of polar expeditions was forged entirely in conditions of unpredictability, isolation, and resource scarcity - precisely the conditions that forge strong leaders. He had no supply chain, no communications infrastructure, no ability to escalate decisions upward. Every call was his, made with incomplete information, under extreme pressure.

// Shackleton x Financial Times

A landmark partnership for leadership.

Jon Slade is the CEO of the Financial Times Group, our partner on the initiative:

"Sir Ernest Shackleton understood that true leadership is forged in extreme conditions and moments of uncertainty. Today, that same level of unpredictability defines global business - demanding resilience, clarity and decisive action from leaders.

Giving executives the opportunity to test themselves both physically and mentally - off-the-grid and far from daily distractions - is a unique experience we're proud to be a part of."

// Shackleton x Financial Times

A five-day event combining polar expeditioning with a structured leadership development program.

The in-field expedition components will be led by Shackleton’s Director of Expeditions, Louis Rudd MBE, an ex-special forces operator and one of the world’s most accomplished polar explorers.

The leadership development elements of the programme will be led by Geraldine Wessing, one of the world's foremost scenario planning practitioners.

These sessions will be predominantly hotel-based with three phases forming the intellectual spine of the week.

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PHASE ONE

Exploring Uncertainty

Exploring Uncertainty reveals and breaks down the cognitive defaults that mislead leaders under pressure — the shortcuts that feel like sound judgment but systematically distort the decisions that matter most.

Phase two

Confronting Uncertainty

Confronting Uncertainty scenario planning masterclasses led by Geraldine Wessing, applying the Shell Scenarios methodology to each participant's own real strategic challenge.

phase three

Leading Through Uncertainty

Leading Through Uncertainty answers the question the programme has been building toward: how do you apply this directly to your leadership challenges and, importantly, make sure you take your people with you?

The Output

The Shackleton Leadership Compass

Every element of the week - each workshop, each venture onto the ice, each campfire conversation - contributes to the creation of each leader's Shackleton Leadership Compass: a personal framework that makes the implicit explicit - bringing together their challenges and aspirations, strategic tools, character and influence required to lead.

Where adventure meets strategy

This program combines the raw challenge of polar expedition training with structured leadership development, creating an experience that fundamentally shifts how executives approach adversity, teamwork, and decision-making under pressure.

Senior staff from the Financial Times and Shackleton will be in attendance.

Program takeaways:

- Clear leadership principles and values

- Mental tools to navigate the uncertain landscape of modern business

- Psychological readiness to lead in adversity

- Scenario planning and crisis response models

In business, as in exploration, preparedness is the key to any success.

Two components will support your readiness.

A program introduction will take place at a meeting in London in the autumn of 2026 (or via remote channels if required). You will receive full details of all aspects of the program and you’ll meet the teams from Financial Times and Shackleton as well as your fellow explorers.

To help you arrive in Norway fully ready, you’ll have full access to Shackleton Challenges Foundations. This world-class expedition preparation program is delivered via a combination of personal consultations, online webinars and unique experiences by Shackleton’s expert performance partners in endurance, expeditions and extremes. Shackleton has partnered with global institutions Loughborough University and Royal Geographic Society, alongside industry leaders Science in Sport and Calo to deliver a unique and impactful preparedness experience.

THE MISSION

Develop your ability to lead in uncertain times, build personal and professional resilience, learn new skills,and discover what you’re made of.

This is not a corporate retreat. The FT Leadership Expedition is a carefully curated experience for senior executives ready to challenge themselves physically and mentally. Limited to ensure intimacy, exclusivity, and genuine transformation. No prior polar experience required, but a commitment to fitness and personal growth is essential.

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Leadership Expedition Specifics

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Your Delivery Team

Direction of Expeditions

Louis Rudd

Louis Rudd MBE is a record-breaking polar adventurer, former Royal Marine Commando and SAS soldier. He is the first and only person to have traversed Antarctica twice using human power alone and has reached the South Pole three times from different coastal starting points. Louis has covered more than 3000 polar miles on skis, with multiple extreme cold-weather tours in Northern Norway with the special forces. He has guided expeditions on a 1100-mile crossing of Antarctica and a 350-mile crossing of Greenland. He is also a military Arctic warfare instructor, a military ski instructor, a qualified army patrol medic, and a military snowmobile instructor, with additional training in crevasse and avalanche rescue. A member of the Explorers Club and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Louis has written of his journeys to date in his autobiography ‘Endurance’.

Scenario Planning Practitioner

Geraldine Wessing

Geraldine Wessing is the world's foremost scenario planning practitioner. She has decades of experience leading the pioneering scenarios team at Shell - the most revered strategic foresight group in history.

She boasts a career advising heads of state, global boards, and the senior leadership of the world's most complex institutions on the decisions that have shaped industries, economies, and the futures of nations - her depth of expertise in navigating uncertainty and change is unrivalled.

Expeditions Manager

Amelia Rudd

Amelia is a polar explorer with experience in Svalbard, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica. In 2020, Amelia became only the seventh woman in history to complete a solo, unsupported journey from Hercules Inlet to the geographic South Pole. She has also completed a full traverse of Greenland and trained extensively in Finse. In addition to her own trips, Amelia has more than a decade of experience in planning and managing other major expeditions – she was the expedition manager for Louis’ record-breaking Spirit of Endurance Expedition in 2018. Amelia also has a wealth of knowledge about the history of polar exploration and scientific research at high latitudes.

Expedition preparedness Expert

Max Thorpe

Max Thorpe is a record-breaking adventure athlete specialising in scenario planning and extreme environments preparedness - predominantly stress-testing senior leaders and teams on their resilience. He is defined by a journey to the edge with Chris Williams during which life and death was ultimately determined by a few inches and a series of high-pressure decisions in an Atlantic storm - an ocean he returned to conquer just a few years later.

As an integrated member of the Shackleton team, he has led expedition preparedness for Shackleton Challenges since its inception and leads the connection between the programme theory and the physical exposure out on the ice in Finse.

PSYCHOLOGIST

Chris Williams

Chris Williams is a qualified psychologist specialising in the science of leading under stress and pressure. His experience spans over a decade of leadership in commercial elite sport including premiership football, British Cycling and global triathlon.

Chris builds and leads the essential foundation of behavioural psychology that underpins the programme, ensuring insights deliver on both an individual leadership and organisational level.

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