LEAD48

LEAD48 Global Relay 2027 · First edition

The decisions shaping our future are global. The conversation still isn't.

Carry the baton. Build the relay.

48 hours. Eight regions. One question moving around the world.

  • Fully online
  • Global
  • 20–22 May 2027
Explore the inquiry See how the relay works

The question

One question, carried around the world.

The enduring LEAD48 question What kind of leadership does our world need now?

The 2027 edition question

How must leadership change when the systems people depend on are changing faster than institutions can adapt?

Technology, climate and fragile institutions reach every region at once, but they do not land the same way. What works in one economy fails in another.

Leadership cannot be understood from one geography, one economy or one worldview. So the question does not stay in one place: each region tests it against its own reality and hands the next one a sharper version.

The global relay

Eight regions. One at a time.

One question. Eight regions. 48 hours. One continuous global conversation.

It opens in North America at 9:00 a.m. Toronto time on 20 May and follows the sun, region to region, overlapping as daylight moves. For the first orbit the world listens: eight regional realities each challenge the question and hand on a sharper one. Then it connects: what the regions found is put in relationship. After 48 hours the question returns to Toronto, changed.

See every wave in your local time →
THE BATON'S ROUTE48 hours. Eight regional realities. One evolving question.
One world. One direction. One baton. The baton follows the sun.
  1. 01North AmericaToronto
  2. 02Latin America & CaribbeanSão Paulo
  3. 03Australia & PacificSydney
  4. 04East & Southeast AsiaSingapore
  5. 05South AsiaNew Delhi
  6. 06Middle East & North AfricaCairo
  7. 07Sub-Saharan AfricaLagos
  8. 08EuropeLondon

How the relay works

The world receives one baton.

01

Receive.

Take up the question the last region handed on.

02

Understand.

Establish what is really happening here.

03

Challenge.

Test the assumptions that do not hold.

04

Respond.

Show what people here are trying.

05

Transform.

Turn it into a sharper question.

06

Pass.

Hand the baton to the next region, live.

The seven beats of every movement →

What the relay is exploring

Twelve tensions the relay is exploring.

Each theme draws on the regions or the Global Convergence that examine it. Start with the tension you know, or follow the relay region by region.

  1. 01When capability exists but never reaches the outcome

    Where skills, money and technology are lost between having them and getting results.

    North AmericaSouth AsiaSub-Saharan AfricaEurope

  2. 02When the door opens before people can walk through it

    Access arrives faster than the capability to use it, and someone carries the gap.

    South AsiaSub-Saharan AfricaGlobal Convergence

  3. 03Who keeps the value when it is created

    Where the value of production and adaptation ends up, and who gets to keep it.

    Latin America & CaribbeanSub-Saharan Africa

  4. 04Inherited endowment, or a leadership choice?

    How much of a transition is fixed by what a country inherited, and how much is still a choice.

    Middle East & North Africa

  5. 05Fund, sequence, defer or stop: when every choice is defensible

    Choosing what comes first when every option is defensible and capacity is scarce.

    North AmericaLatin America & CaribbeanMiddle East & North AfricaSub-Saharan AfricaEurope

  6. 06Renewing a system that cannot be switched off

    Changing a model while the systems it depends on have to keep running.

    East & Southeast Asia

  7. 07Adapting faster without spending the trust you will need later

    Moving faster without using up the legitimacy institutions will need later.

    North AmericaEurope

  8. 08The same link, as strength and as exposure

    Connections that make systems stronger can be the first thing to fail: what to share and what to keep local.

    Australia & PacificGlobal Convergence

  9. 09Deciding for people who did not make the choice

    Choices whose consequences fall on people with no say, including generations not yet born.

    Australia & PacificGlobal Convergence

  10. 10When the same evidence tells different stories

    Averages, indicators and shared facts that different places, people and sectors read in opposite ways.

    North AmericaGlobal Convergence

  11. 11What changes when words and answers travel

    Concepts and working solutions that change, or break, when they cross a border, a sector or an institution.

    Global Convergence

  12. 12Problems no single place or system can solve

    Challenges that outgrow any one map, and consequences that travel to where no one is in charge.

    Global Convergence

The Toronto ReturnCurated The question comes home to Toronto, changed by everywhere it has been. It is curated, and it is not one of the themes.

Research and context

A starting point, not a verdict.

Every region's page opens with what LEAD48's research found: the conditions, the tensions, the cases, and what the evidence cannot show. It is published so it can be tested.

If your work confirms it, complicates it or contradicts it, that is what the inquiry is for. A well-supported challenge is one of the strongest things anyone can bring.

How LEAD48 knows what it knows →

The output

LEAD48 Global Leadership Report 2027

What each region contributes becomes part of one global record of insights, tensions and actions leaders can use.

The programme is designed to generate the report. Every region documents five outputs, from an evidence-backed reality statement to a transformed Baton Question.

Grounded in the Sustainable Development Goals, it records regional realities, practical responses, agreements and disagreements, unresolved tensions, transferable practices and questions to keep asking. No forced consensus.

Who the inquiry needs

What can you bring to the question?

Not a talk and not a title: a perspective, evidence, experience or a case the conversation is missing. Every role is online, volunteer and unpaid.

01

A perspective

Lived or professional experience of how a region's reality actually works.

Find the theme it belongs to → 02

Evidence

Research or data that strengthens, challenges or extends what LEAD48 found.

See the research → 03

A case

A response or experiment others could learn from, including one that failed for reasons worth knowing.

Explore the regions → 04

Your attention

Follow the 48 hours online, from wherever you are.

Hear when registration opens →

Trust the process

Selection you can check.

See how selection works

LEAD48 Global Relay 2027

Where will you carry the baton?

Explore opportunities

Contributor opportunities will open through the LEAD48 programme themes. Every role and question is readable now.

Adult applications only. Attendee registration opens in January.

Tell me when opportunities open.

One email, when opportunities open. Nothing else.

Questions: charles.igwe@ci3pro.ca.