Working at the intersection of ritual intelligence & venture leadership
Founded by Cleo Shortland, the Wā Programme guides founders and owners through the threshold between what they’ve built with their hands and where they’re being called to lead next. Through ceremony, deep listening and experimentation, surface your personal brilliance in this four-month journey to bring what’s next alive.
Working at the intersection of ritual intelligence & venture leadership
Founded by Cleo Shortland, the Wā Programme guides founders and owners through the threshold between what they’ve built with their hands and where they’re being called to lead next. Through ceremony, deep listening and experimentation, surface your personal brilliance in this four-month journey to bring what’s next alive.
Wā
(noun) time, season, period of time, interval, term, duration.
How it works
You disappear. You do the work. You re-emerge.
Re-imagine
The journey begins in the truth of what you’re beginning to see, unfiltered. Through deep enquiry and ritual informed reflection, we name what the problem is and explore all possibilities.
Relationship
We delve into your relationships with people, your work, your direction. This is where you activate your personal brilliance and decide on your next move.
The Work
It’s time to move through the threshold with purposeful action and creation. This process effects the transition from the old to new, your becoming.
Contribution
With clarity and your impact firmly in hand, you are alive in your personal evolution. In what you truly want and desire. Now we look at how you can give back in exchange for what has been received.
What you receive8 fortnightly 1.5hr sessions with Cleo, each building on the last
Unlimited communication line with Cleo between sessions
Trello board to track progress
Programme start date and duration10 August 2026
4 months
InvestmentUSD $2,500 per month over 4 months
Kind words from my clients
Frequently asked questions
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A transition guide uses one-on-one guidance, ritual and visualisation tools to help you rethink what’s possible. It’s deep work that looks at ways to access your personal brilliance and convert this into a vision, decisions and action. From here, we can build with clarity and move purposefully toward what’s next.
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Each mentor, coach, and guide has different histories, qualities and specialties, so it is important to understand where the need comes from before seeking support.
Here is a ritual to help you.
Find a quiet space and ask yourself:
What keeps me up at night about my business?
How do I want to feel after a session?
What environment helps me do my best thinking?
Once you have sat with those answers ask yourself: can Cleo help me with these? And if you need some extra support, you can always get in touch.
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No, quite the opposite. Some of my favourite clients are the ones who've zigzagged, pivoted, started over, or built something that doesn't fit a neat category – usually in the quest of finding something more fulfilling.
I've done the same myself, so I'm not here to hand you a cookie-cutter roadmap. What we build together is shaped entirely around you: your story, your strengths, and the vision that excites you most.
Unconventional paths often lead to the most interesting places giving you greater clarity and direction.
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If you're a neurodivergent business owner wondering whether this is for you, it depends.
I'm not a specialist in neurodivergent care, and I want to be honest about that. What I can offer is a container that doesn't require you to show up perfectly to sessions. The work happens between sessions too through unlimited communication, at whatever hour your brain decides it's ready ;). Waking up to 20 messages and voice notes from a client when they’ve received an epiphany is not uncommon, and I love it. All thoughts, well rounded and half made, are welcome here at Wā.
I invite you to get in touch and we can figure out if my approach is a fit for you.
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Good! I don't work that way.
There's a difference between a framework and framing. Frameworks are handed to you. Framing emerges from the work itself. It is introduced once clarity arrives.
My approach leaves space to free flow. This is where the real thinking happens. And once something starts to take shape, we begin building a gentle structure around it.
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I am based in New Zealand based. I work locally and abroad with clients in Australia, North America, UK and Europe.
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That feeling, that everyone and everything else comes first, is often exactly why we need to talk. It's how you've always shown up. And it may be the very thing to release to step into what's next.
Most of my clients find me at their most stretched and we use what has caused this to re-imagine what work looks like.
And if after our conversation you decide now isn't the moment, that's okay too. I ask my clients to trust their own timing. You'll know when it's time.