regenerators’ origin Story

Regenerators began as a dream that first came to me in the winter of 2016 while I was recovering from a brain injury, yet I see now that the seeds were sown long before.

In the summer of 2015, a minor traumatic brain injury forced me into an extended period of silence and recovery. As a type-A, highly driven leader working at the forefront of sustainability, slowing down felt unbearable. In the autumn of 2015, while my organisation was preparing for major events at the New York Climate Week and COP21 in Paris, milestones I had worked years toward, I couldn’t even manage a trip to the supermarket. Days before COP21 began, I had to face the truth: my brain and body needed to heal. 

So while my colleagues gathered in Paris, I checked myself into a silent retreat in nature. Taking it slow and being deeply present was activating slight anxiety. I was not used to it. I recalled years earlier, while collaborating with faith leaders on climate action, when I had been challenged by their insistence on deep listening, heart-sharing, and silence when all I wanted was to push forward, make plans, and act. During my enforced retreat, far from the constant striving, I finally began to recognise the deeper underlying lessons that I had resisted for so long.

During this silent retreat, I kept coming back to my time in the Ecuadorian Amazon when I was 20 years old, where I was lucky to spend many days walking the forest with an indigenous elder who spoke of our interconnectedness in the greater web of life. As I sank further into the nourishing silence, I began to realise that I had been exploiting my own inner ecosystem in the same way our societies exploit outer ones. This pattern of extraction had left me fragile. I knew that burnout, stress, and disconnection weren’t just personal struggles, but collective ones, undermining our capacity to meet the crises of our time.

The injury became a portal that opened up new landscapes for me. I began to be inspired by the dynamics of living systems and their regenerative capacities. I realised that many in the sustainability field are fighting passionately ‘for’ nature while continuing to see themselves as outside of it, an exception to the rule. I immersed myself in biology, physics, Indigenous wisdom, deep ecology, contemplative practice, and the work of thinkers like Joanna Macy, Lynn Margulis, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Janine Benyus, and Fritjof Capra. Slowly, the essence of what would become Regenerators came alive through dreams, meditations, and long walks in nature: a vision of a global community dedicated to re-aligning our systems, organisations, and lives with the logic of life itself.

In this period, I serendipitously met Giles Hutchins – a global pioneer who, at the time, had written three powerful books about business inspired by nature and the illusion of separation. We started to work closely together and travelled the world, facilitating various regenerative leadership processes in forests and fields. This partnership gave birth to the book Regenerative Leadership – The DNA of Life-Affirming 21st Century Organizations. No publisher believed in a leadership book inspired by living systems at the time, so we published it ourselves. It quickly became a bestseller and has since been translated into seven languages, affirming that many were longing for new ways of leading and living, rooted in reciprocity and right relationship.

Still, I kept dreaming of a global community of practice - for people who felt like lonely wolves and longed for a wolfpack to explore and learn alongside. In 2020, I began facilitating virtual learning journeys, and by autumn 2021, the Regenerators Academy was born. Since then, more than 1,500 people have participated in our programs. Our community has grown into a vibrant ecosystem with regional chapters, projects, and gatherings that continue to evolve in beautiful, unexpected ways.

Regenerators was born from both breakdown and breakthrough, and it continues to be nurtured by the collective longing for a world where people, organizations, and ecosystems thrive together.

You are warmly invited to walk this path with us.