In January 2011, Founder Simon Preston convened a small group of CEO’s in Cairo, Egypt to explore and share their experiences of leading and collaborating across global diversity.

The key insight from their discussions was how this group of leaders had been exposed early to global diversity and had developed strong habits around learning from these experiences.

During this trip, the Arab Spring riots broke out; a real-time case study of the challenges of working with complexity and diversity.

In 2012, RISE was founded as a consultancy, seeking to take insights on collaboration and complexity to support the practical reality of geographically dispersed organisations, working alongside leaders on real business challenges.

The necessity to work in partnership with clients to develop better habits and practices evolved here.

In 2018, RISE established its consultant community as a space for independent consultants who were curious about working differently with complexity and uncertainty.  The community allows for connection and exploration, working and learning together; supporting our individual and collective development.

In 2021, we started to apply the principles of shared governance within the RISE community, making the shift away from a hierarchal structure. We now use self-organizing circles as a core way of working which is giving further insight into how to intensify purpose, agility, and pace of learning for our clients.