Our Topic: “Partnering”

This year’s edition of As Far As is for entrepreneurs, artists and friends who want to reflect and share their experiences on professional and private partnerships. This weekend will be a rare moment to pause, to connect, and to reflect on your ability to nurture deep connections in your own life.

If you are as concerned about the following questions as we are, you will come to the right place:

Who support you and bring out the best sides of you?
Who do you support in such a way that they can shine as partners at your sides?
How often do you review with your partners where you are and how you want to move forward together?
Are there rules of the game or any tools at all that we have learned in dealing with our partners?
How do you manage to get and give new energy in your partnerships?
What did you learn from them?
Might be partnering one solution to our big challenges we facing in society?

We are proud to present you Jean Oelwang, president and founding CEO of Virgin Unite and author of the book “Partnering” as our thought leader in 2022.

Jean has spent more than 15 years working with some of legacy like partnerships, like Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel, Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel, Ben and Jerry or the cofounders of Airbnb. All of them learned to become a better version of themselves due to their partnerships, which directly multiplied their positive impact on the world.

Jean Oelwang has found 5 principles of deep connections in her research, which she will share with us by means of examples and in joint discussions.

Maybe you know the saying: “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Yet the only way we are going to go fast and far is together, so this weekend will be an exploration of how we can build deep connections in our own lives and how we can use them to scale change in the world.

About the Thought Leader

Jean Oelwang is the founding CEO and President of Virgin Unite. Over the last 17 years, she has worked with partners to lead the incubation and start-up of several global initiatives, including: The Elders, The B Team, The Carbon War Room (successfully merged with the RMI), The Africa Donor Collective, Ocean Unite (now ORRAA), The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, and 100% Human at Work. Jean also served as a Partner in the Virgin Group leading their people strategy.

Jean spent seventeen years living and working on six continents to start and help lead mobile phone companies in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and the US.  She was the joint CEO of Virgin Mobile in Australia prior to starting Virgin Unite.

Jean holds several advisory board roles, including The Elders, Vintro, Vatican Humanity 2.0, and the Sara Blakely Foundation.  She is on the boards of RMI, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, AID Live, Unite BVI Foundation, The B Team, Penn State Board of Visitors, and Just Capital.  She is also honoured to be a B Team leader. She is the author of Partnering and co-founded Plus Wonder to spark more meaningful deep connections and collaborations in the world.