The AV Fellowship Midpoint: Re-Anchoring Leadership for the Long Game
At the midpoint of the Access Ventures Fellowship, six Fellows gathered in Miami for a three day convening, designed to pause the pace of building and re-anchor the leaders doing it. The gathering marked a shift in the Fellowship’s rhythm from early formation and project framing, toward deeper clarity, resilience, and long term leadership orientation. Rather than focusing solely on outputs, the midpoint created space to strengthen relationships, sharpen judgment, and reconnect Fellows to the values guiding their work.
Leadership Through Global Perspective and Hard Questions
On the first full day, Fellows participated in a guided working session led by Ilaria Chan, whose experience spans global technology, finance, and policy, from advising Grab in Southeast Asia to serving on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council. Rather than offering prescriptive advice, Ilaria challenged Fellows to ask harder questions of their own leadership:
-What does responsible scale actually look like?
-How do decisions today shape organizational culture tomorrow?
-Where does personal leadership maturity become the limiting factor?
Her global perspective helped Fellows test their assumptions around growth, sustainability, and influence, grounding ambition in long term responsibility and stewardship.
Examining Growth, Culture, and Executive Judgment
The morning continued with a facilitated case study on Mixbook, examining the organizational and cultural implications of rapid growth. Fellows explored the tension between scaling quickly and remaining anchored to core values, with particular focus on executive communication, decision making, and trust across teams.
This discussion transitioned into a reflective writing exercise on leadership and organizational culture. Using those reflections, Fellows received personalized letters generated from their own insights, intended as future reference points when navigating complex leadership moments. The exercise reinforced a core Fellowship belief that the most enduring leadership frameworks already live within the leader.
Place, Community, and Collective Success
In the afternoon, Fellows joined a curated tour of Miami led by Brian Brackeen, founder of Kairos and an investor focused on supporting underrepresented founders across the Midwest and South. Through the lens of Miami’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Brian highlighted how cultural identity, collaboration, and shared success can catalyze both organizational and civic flourishing. A central theme emerged throughout the day, that if those around us succeed, we all succeed.
Looking Ahead
The Miami midpoint experience underscored the Fellowship’s commitment to leadership that is shaped in community and sustained through relationship. It reminded Fellows that leadership does not operate in isolation, but within living, thriving systems—rooted in place, people, and shared responsibility.
The convening reaffirmed the program’s emphasis on human-centered formation, intentional growth, and community-driven impact. As the Fellowship continues to evolve, the midpoint experience offered a clear signal: this is not simply a space to advance projects, but a place to deepen the leader behind them.
This mirrors what has always been at the heart of Access Ventures’ work. From Shelby Park to housing, from the regional capital strategy to Reconstruct, AV has long believed that transformation happens through proximity—by committing to neighborhoods, investing in local ecosystems, and cultivating leadership embedded in real communities.
In that same spirit, the Access Ventures Fellowship is designed around a regional focus for each cohort, reflecting our belief that leadership is formed through shared place. Concentrating Fellows within a common region fosters deeper relationships, stronger cohort cohesion, and a more immersive Fellowship experience.
This model enables more meaningful in-person engagement, peer support, and access to regional mentors and resources that enrich both personal development and long-term community impact. The regional focus may shift from year to year based on program priorities, and applicants are required to live in, or within reasonable proximity to, the designated region to ensure full participation in the Fellowship’s gatherings and community life.
As Access Ventures looks toward future cohorts, including the 2026 Fellowship SoCal, the Miami convening stands as a model of how formation, strategy, and relationship can converge—equipping leaders not only to build what comes next, but to sustain it well within the places they call home.