Strive together.
Thrive together.

We've been pursuing wellbeing while ignoring our symbiotic relationship with each other and the planet. I help leaders develop the mindset and skills to restore the balance, and to create the conditions for collective, long-term thriving.

Alexander Schmidt
Symbiotic Leadership

The change I seek to make

For decades, we've treated economic growth and planetary health as separate ledgers. Buy now, pay later. But the bill is arriving. Disrupted supply chains, volatile energy markets, extreme weather, and a generation of leaders who sense that something fundamental needs to shift.

Symbiotic Leadership means recognizing that none of us will be well if the planet is not. It's a shift from extractive to generative, in how we think, lead, and create value.

This isn't a call to renounce ambition. It's a return to the original meaning of competition: com-petere, to strive together. The change starts ground-up, with leaders who have the humility to admit they don't have all the answers alone, and the courage to find them together.

Now forming: founding cohort 2026

Retreat to Progress

A small-cohort intensive for sustainability leaders working in the gap between the commitments that have been made and what is actually moving on the ground.

Three days on the Bohuslän coast with five to eight peers, curated around a shared problem, with follow-through built in.

Cohort size
5–8 leaders
Format
3 days residential
Location
Swedish west coast
Dates
Sep–Oct 2026
Learn more and express interest →
Swedish west coast
How I work

Beyond the retreat

Some of this work happens one to one, and some of it inside a team that has to make the decision together. Alongside Retreat to Progress, I work with individual leaders and with leadership teams building a response that holds the whole problem rather than one piece of it.

1:1 Coaching

Deep, individual work for leaders in the middle of the shift. Clarifying your theory of change, then building a response your organization can actually carry.

Teams & Projects

Structured sprints with leadership teams on a specific challenge. Finance, supply chains, carbon, and governance treated as one system rather than four.

Background

Built at the intersections

The Symbiotic Leadership philosophy grows from over a decade of applied work at the intersection of carbon accounting, supply chain ESG traceability, climate finance, and standards governance. I hold a PhD in Econometrics and have worked as an independent advisor bridging disciplines, institutions, and sectors. Those are the coordination problems that siloed expertise cannot solve.

That's what I bring to the leaders I work with now: a practical, integrated way of responding to problems that don't sit inside a single discipline.

UN/CEFACT Rewired Earth Exponential Roadmap Initiative Earth Governance Alliance
Get involved

This is an invitation

Whether you're a leader sensing the need for a fundamental shift, or already acting on it, I'd like to hear from you.

Book an exploration conversation Read my writing

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