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 intellectual and creative brilliance in this four-month 1:1 journey to bring what’s next alive.

Meet Cleo
A woman with curly dark hair smiling, wearing a white long-sleeve shirt, sitting on a sofa in a room with large windows in the background.

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 intellectual and creative brilliance in this four-month 1:1 journey to bring what’s next alive.

Meet Cleo

Wā

(noun) time, season, period of time, interval, term, duration.

The Wā Programme

This is for you if:

  • You have an emerging venture for something special to you.

  • This needs a devoted space to allow for creative ideas.

  • There are parts of yourself that no longer fit neatly together.

  • You feel a pressing urgency that now is your time to do this.

  • You are called to be witnessed as you cross into this next chapter.

And you know the old way won't work this time.

The Wā Programme is a four-month 1:1 container for the founder who is ready to create something new.

Watercolor painting of the Earth viewed from space, with continents and oceans visible, surrounded by a purple and blue cosmic background.

A taster of the journey

The Wā Programme is set across four pillars to ensure that by the end of our 4 months together, and your devotional practice of following through, you are left with something tangible.

Identity: Together we rework your story so that what feels out of reach or uncomfortable was always meant for you.

Relationship: Looking across potential value chains and support networks to establish a web of inter-connected relationships, each holding meaning and purpose.

Creation Grounding into your current reality, because how you choose to act from here is what defines who you are today.

Contribution Giving back from what has been received.

“My time working with Cleo was alchemical. I had never felt so deeply held and understood, a natural gift Cleo holds.

I've become a wealth magnet, redefined what working on my own terms looks like, and I'm looking fucking amazing from all the work I've put into myself.

Working with Cleo goes far deeper than the mind, and you have to experience it to understand her power, and what can be created together.

— Rhea James Fox

Kia ora, I’m Cleo, curator of journeys

No two journeys are ever the same. Each shaped by my observations of what is most true for the person in front of me.

My practice draws on 20 years of legal smarts and venture leadership woven together with the art of creating and facilitating ritual. I understand that there are major highs, dredging through shit, and plain old repetitively boring times when it comes to actualising dreams, and the way towards them is never direct. There is plenty of thinking, doing, and magnetising. And through my experience across diverse mediums and industries, you will have an intentional, nourishing and cleverly designed experience to move through.

Rooted in te ao Māori, my worldview is relational, cyclical and grounded in place. When I sit with you at a threshold, I bring all of it.

Meet Cleo 
What you receive

This 4 month experience gives you 8 fortnightly 2 hour sessions with Cleo, each building on the last, unlimited communication line between sessions, and a bespoke Trello board to track progress

❋ Programme start date

Begins 10 August through to 13 December 2026

❋ Format

Sessions are 1:1 in-person Bay of Islands, New Zealand and/or video call

❋ Expert Guidance

Cleo Shortland works with you to build a journey moving in purpose

❋ Investment

USD $10,000, optional payment in four monthly instalments of $2,500

“I needed someone who understood people, business, and also law.

Cleo is a great thinker because of her innate ability to get deep into people’s psyche and personality in order to understand them.  To my mind, she has a special sense of spirituality about her that enables her to have these special traits."

— Nick Kearney

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Rather than watching the time, we are moving through it, and with that, sessions tend to range between 90 minutes and 2 hours long.

    This is deep work that requires space for reflection, ideation, and then determining experiments and aligned action for between sessions.

  • I work at the intersection of the rational and the creative derived from my time building ventures, while creating the rituals that add depth to the lived experience.

    It is through this that you can expect one who can sit with the weight of what you are carrying, and meet you with both the frameworks to make sense of it and the ritual intelligence to move through it.

    You will be held however you show up. And we will get to work on your idea even when things are unclear.

  • I’m taking a break from standard social media platforms to focus more on the Wā Programme’s evolution. During this time, I’ve found I’ve been picking up the phone a lot more and traveling as I love to connect and learn through people.

    You can watch or listen to the Wā Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. I film the podcast on my travels with a focus on personal stories of founders and owners behind their brand.

  • I’ve been building frameworks for close to 2 decades now and a journey without a framing runs the risk of you floating into ideation for all of time.

    I use 4 pillars (identity, relationship, creation and contribution) to ensure the journey is open enough for ideas, spontaneity and experimentation whilst also enabling you to land somewhere intentional by the end of the programme. And this is important as the act of completion int this first iteration makes your venture real and your becoming real. Taking an idea and bringing it into form.

  • I too have worked with different mentors, coaches, and guides, and they each offer different gifts to support different needs and journeys. This is why 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 this idea and venture?

    • 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.

  • It’s important for me to note that I am not a specialist in neurodivergent care.

    What I can offer is a container that invites you in however you are and we work with this both in sessions, through the unlimited communication line, and through your experiments and aligned action.

    Logging on to 20 voice notes from a client mid-epiphany is not uncommon, and I love it. All thoughts, half-formed and whole, are welcome on the Wā Programme.

    Get in touch and we can figure out together if my approach is a fit.

  • I’m based in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, working locally and abroad with clients in Australia, North America, UK and Europe.

  • Some of my favourite clients are the ones who have 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 can lead to the most interesting places giving you greater clarity and direction.