Founder Cohort  ·  Opens September 2026

The Sound
Leader

A unique live leadership training for enhanced performance, engagement, communication and influence.

There is a leadership skillset that almost every senior leader lacks, but that no programme has been teaching. It comprises the ability to speak so that people want to listen, and to leave others feeling genuinely listened to, in a workplace that's compromised by noise and distractions and that includes multiple generations communicating in entirely different ways.

Apply here Limited to 12 senior leaders.
Led by Julian Treasure.
Julian Treasure, hand cupped to his ear, listening
Scroll
One integrated system

The Sound Leader is the only programme that treats four critical practices as one integrated communication system, designed for and delivered to senior executives.

01

Conscious listening

02

Powerful speaking

03

Masterful presenting

04

Harnessing the power of sound

In practice

The aim is to increase productivity, engagement and wellbeing.

What this looks like in practice is…

01

Meetings that finish on time and don't need follow-ups, because the room actually heard each other the first time.

02

More accurate information from direct reports, the inconvenient kind included, surfacing earlier than it used to.

03

Stronger presence in board, customer and media contexts, with messages that land and are remembered rather than restated.

04

A working environment that supports thinking rather than draining it, with measurable productivity and wellbeing gains.

05

A brand voice that an AI can't easily clone or counterfeit, increasingly rare and increasingly valuable as the synthetic flood rises.

The Founder Cohort opens this autumn, and only once.

12 senior leaders · Eight weeks on Zoom · Led by Julian Treasure Julian Treasure
Apply here

Places are by application only.

Led by Julian Treasure

Julian Treasure is the world's leading authority on speaking, listening and the power of sound.

His 17 TED and TEDx talks have been viewed more than 141 million times and his work is used globally by leaders, organisations and institutions. This programme brings that expertise into a focused, leadership-level setting.

141M+
Views
17
TED & TEDx talks
150,000
People trained
Guest curator at TED 2026
Sixth most-viewed TED talk of all time
Featured on Diary of a CEO
Julian Treasure
Julian Treasure
Your programme

A structure built around a senior diary, not against it.

The room

12 senior leaders

Twelve CXOs. Eight weeks on Zoom. A highly efficient structure minimising your time commitment and maximising effectiveness. Every session live with Julian Treasure, the world expert in communication and sound and the most-watched TED speaker of all time with five TED and 12 TEDx talks amassing over 141 million views.

The rhythm

10 minutes a day

Mon
10 min
Live
Tue
10 min
Live
Wed
10 min
Live
Thu
10 min
Live
Fri
60 min
Q&A
Sun
Prep
Email

Each week: four 10-minute live sessions from Monday to Thursday, each one anchored to a single core idea and a single practice task you take into the next 24 hours. A 60-minute live Q&A every Friday. A short Sunday prep email setting up the week ahead. In total, 32 micro-sessions, designed to fit around a senior diary rather than compete with it. No hour-long videos to binge. No homework that piles up.

The curriculum

The unique curriculum draws on three published books (Sound Business, How To Be Heard, Sound Affects), 17 TED and TEDx talks, online courses taken by over 150,000 students, and numerous corporate workshops Julian has been delivering and refining for two decades. External research is woven in week by week as integrated synthesis, with Julian's frameworks as the spine.

Fit

Who this is for

For

Active senior leaders

CEOs, C-suite, senior department heads. People with real teams and real stakes who already suspect that how they listen and how they speak has become a constraint on performance, engagement and even wellbeing.

Not for

Anyone else

Junior managers, retired executives, coaches collecting credentials, or anyone looking for a personal development course. The Founder Cohort is small precisely so that the conversation in the room sits at peer level.

What changes for you

A measurably different communicator.

By the end of the eight weeks you will be a measurably different communicator. Not a more confident one (confidence without skill is a problem at this altitude), but a more skilled one. The change shows up across three domains.

Productivity

Your meetings move faster because everyone in the room feels heard the first time. Communication you send lands clearly, with less rework, fewer clarifying follow-ups, and fewer one-to-ones to mop up. The sonic environment around you and your employees works with rather than against focus, because you have the knowledge to design ideal conditions that can as much as triple productivity.

Engagement

People lean in when you speak, in any senior context: board, all-hands, regulator, media, customer keynote. Your team trusts you to model what good communication looks like, which raises the standard across everyone who reports to you. You learn how to leave others feeling genuinely listened to, which is the single highest-impact behaviour for trust at scale.

Wellbeing

You are less drained by the noise of modern work because you understand what sound is doing to you physiologically, and you have the tools to manage it for yourself and your entire organisation. You are more conscious of what your own voice is doing to you and to those around you. The cumulative cost that poor listening and speaking imposes on you and your teams, through fatigue, poor decision quality and stress, drops sharply. You also become someone other senior leaders want to talk to about communication, which has career and network effects beyond the programme itself.

What you take with you

The course is live, but the materials are yours to keep.

Every live session is recorded. The recordings are available to you for life: if your week makes a session impossible, you catch up at your own pace and rejoin the next live one. The sequence is not critical most of the time, and the cohort moves together rather than apart.

Each of the 32 teaching sessions has a downloadable worksheet you take into your next 24 hours. The worksheets accumulate into a workbook by the end of the eight weeks, which becomes your reference for everything you have learned.

Your cohort gets a private space in The Listening Society, hosted on Circle, where the recordings, worksheets, and any supplementary materials are stored. You retain access to that space after the cohort ends. All cohort members receive Gold membership of The Listening Society, yielding countless other valuable resources, as well as lifetime complimentary access to Julian's paid Substack subscriber tier.

The Listening Society Programme workbook Julian Treasure demonstrating listening
Trusted by leaders at
Adobe Goldman Sachs Google Johns Hopkins University Kohler NHS PwC Roche Rokt SAP Shure Armstrong Audio-Technica Hitachi Pfizer Swiss Medical Network USMC TED
Julian Treasure on stage
What people say about Julian
The highest-rated speech we have ever had in 25 events over 18 years.

Julian's keynote remains the highest-rated speech we have ever had in 25 events over 18 years.

Head of Operations, Presidents Summit

You are officially our highest-rated session of the Summit! Huge Congratulations!

Head of Speaker Selection, World Business & Executive Coach Summit

Listening to Julian was very useful to me and my colleagues to align the whole company to a new mission with higher values. I think we have the duty of placing sound in a central position in any kind of environment and Julian helped us a lot to become more conscious.

Marketing & Communications Manager, K-ARRAY

Julian provided very useful insights and practical tips which are very effective in improving listening and speaking skills. He shared a number of models for listening & speaking which are easy to adopt. Most valuable training course on communication skills. Many thanks Julian.

Standard Chartered Bank

“Wow”, “Outstanding”, “impressive”, “excellent practical ways of improving communication at home & business”… are some of the remarks we received on the feedback for the session with Julian Treasure. As business leaders we have to learn to be effective communicators and this session did just that. The segment on soundscapes and listening was truly an eye-opener for most of us who run businesses globally.

YPO

Julian's workshop at SYNC Summit in Sicily was simply outstanding. It brought such positivity, clarity, and energy, and the impact was felt immediately. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Many Tangooers said it was one of the best learning moments they've ever experienced, and they are already putting your methods into practice.

tangoo.com
The details

Runs once. Twelve seats. Lifetime access.

The Founder Cohort runs once only from Monday September 14 to Friday November 6. There will be four cohorts in 2027. Every cohort is just 12 seats, with lifetime access to its own private space in The Listening Society's website for storage of materials and networking.

Dates14 Sep – 6 Nov 2026
Format8 weeks · live on Zoom
Cohort size12 seats
Sessions32 micro-sessions
AccessRecordings for life
AdmissionBy application

There are 12 seats only in each cohort. Founder Cohort members will provide testimonials for use in marketing at the end of the course.

Founder bonuses

Every Founder Cohort member receives one permanent bonus.

Regardless of when they confirm.

Permanent · no expiry
A 90-minute virtual team workshop delivered by Julian, for each person you introduce who signs up for a 2027 cohort.

If you confirm by 23:59 BST on Saturday 18 July 2026 (World Listening Day), you also receive two early bonuses:

Signed copies of all three of Julian's books: Sound Business, How To Be Heard and Sound Affects.

A one-hour one-to-one coaching session with Julian, scheduled at a time that suits you.

After 18 July 2026 the two early bonuses no longer apply. The permanent referral bonus remains in either case.

How to apply

Founder Cohort places are by application.

The process has two steps.

1

Complete a short qualification form

It takes about five minutes.

2

Have a fit call of 30 minutes with Julian

To confirm this is for you and answer any questions you may have.

If the fit is clear on both sides by the end of the call, you leave with a seat held in your name and a clear timeline for confirming.

There is no pitch on the call. If the programme is not right for you, Julian will say so on the call rather than after it.

Apply here
Frequently asked questions

Before you apply

Is this suitable for very senior leaders?

Yes. The programme is designed specifically for senior responsibility and complexity.

What is the time commitment?

Ten minutes a day Monday–Thursday plus an optional one-hour Q&A on Friday.

What if I miss a session?

All sessions will be recorded and available to you for life as part of your complimentary membership of The Listening Society, where your cohort will have an exclusive private area to connect and reference the recordings.

Can organisations book multiple seats?

Yes, as long as all applicants are senior leaders.

Is this a coaching programme?

It is a structured leadership development programme with live interaction and guidance aimed at senior managers. It is not appropriate for coaches or trainers.