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.

You've built something real. Now it's time to create from who you're becoming.

The Wā Programme

You have

  • An idea you've been circling for years

  • A practice that works and a version of yourself that no longer fits it

  • People who need you to stay as you are

  • The feeling that something is becoming and you can't turn back

  • A quiet urgency you haven't acted on yet

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

A four-month 1:1 container for the founder who is ready to create something new.

Each session has a softness for big thinking. Structured enough to hold bold ideas. Deep enough to carry your change. And grounded in action that seals your becoming.

This is the space for your personal evolution.

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 a curated journey through themes designed to manufacture the changes needed to create from an emerging idea, while holding space for the rabbit holes and unexpected discoveries to bring about your personal evolution.

Identity We manifest from our level of identity. Together we look at where you are and where a shift in your story would create the greatest change.

Relationship How we relate to ourselves, to others, and to our environment shapes our sense of place and belonging. This is where we begin to understand yours.

Creation As your idea takes formation and becomes clearer, the work is done to bring the first iteration into reality.

Contribution Where your gifts make the greatest contribution to your life, your community, and the world, in reciprocation for all that has been received.

“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.

You have to experience it to understand her power, and what can be created together."

— Rhea James Fox

Meet your guide

Cleo Shortland, curator of journeys. No two journeys are ever the same. Each shaped by her observations of what is most true for the person in front of her.

Her practice draws on years of holding rites of passage, daily ritual, non-violent communication and leadership work woven together with a background in leading legal and regulatory change projects.

She knows how to create the conditions for genuine change, and how to keep it moving.

Rooted in te ao Māori, her worldview is relational, cyclical and grounded in place. When she sits with you at a threshold, she brings all of it.

Meet Cleo 
What you receive

You will receive 8 fortnightly 2hr sessions with Cleo, each building on the last, unlimited communication line between sessions, and a bespoke Trello board to track progress

❋ Programme start date

This 4-month experience runs from 10 August to 13 December 2026

❋ Format

1:1 in-person in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand and/ or online

❋ Expert Guidance

Cleo Shortland, Curator of Journeys, works with you to build your journey moving in purpose. 

❋ Investment

Monthly payments of USD $2,500 (inc. GST)

“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

  • Sessions range from 90 minutes to two hours intentionally. Rather than watching the time, we are moving through it.

    Two hours allows us to undergo proper work. We open with ritual, move through themes, and land with focused outcomes before returning to reality. Each session is a ritual experience.

  • Cleo Shortland works at the intersection of the rational and the creative derived from her time building ventures herself, 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.

  • Cleo and Wā aren’t on standard social media platforms but you can access the Wā Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. You can also sign up to Letters from Cleo to receive occasional updates on Cleo’s global travels, rituals and offerings.

  • 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.

  • Each mentor, coach, and guide has different gifts to offer, 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.

  • It depends, and I want to be honest about that. I am not a specialist in neurodivergent care.

    What I can offer is a container that does not require you to show up perfectly. The work happens between sessions too. Through an unlimited communication line, at whatever hour you become ready. 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 here.

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

  • Cleo Shortland is based in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, working locally and abroad with clients in Australia, North America, UK and Europe.

  • 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.