The Culture Catalyst Fellowship
36 Organisations. One Hypothesis: HR Leaders With Coaching Capability Measurably Improve Customer Value, Investor Confidence and Market Performance.
Rise and Thrive Global, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and with global HR leader Professor Dave Ulrich as an advisor, has created a first-of-its-kind Fellowship designed to elevate HR professionals into global Culture Catalysts by amplifying their voice, their organisation's impact, and their legacy.
Across 24 months, 36 organisations are taking part in a bold, evidence-informed transformation exploring one central question:
What happens to organisational performance when HR leaders gain coaching capability, research literacy, and strategic influence?
This is not professional development.
This is 36 live culture experiments with real leaders, real data, and real organisational outcomes.
The 36 Organisations
These are not hypothetical participants. These are real organisations with real stakes.
Participating organisations represent:
- Technology companies scaling globally while maintaining culture
- Healthcare systems improving patient outcomes through staff wellbeing
- Financial services firms strengthening trust and ethical decision-making
- Manufacturing operations reducing safety incidents through psychological safety
- Professional services retaining top talent in competitive markets
- Government agencies improving public service delivery
Combined, these organisations employ over 85,000 people across 12 countries. Their commitment is not theoretical. Each organisation has committed senior HR leadership time, research participation, data transparency, and quarterly reporting on culture metrics.
Their leaders share one conviction: culture is not HR's responsibility alone. Culture is an organisational capability that HR is uniquely positioned to architect.
The Business Problem
Most organisations invest heavily in culture without knowing whether their efforts work.
You run engagement surveys yet lack the capability or resources to fix what they uncover. You hire consultants whose reports sit on shelves. Values are promoted but not always lived. Leaders want high performance but avoid difficult conversations. Culture becomes accidental rather than intentionally designed.
Meanwhile:
- Psychological safety remains low
- Leadership behaviour is inconsistent
- Coaching capability is limited
- Employee turnover drains the budget
- Innovation slows because people stay silent
The cost is measurable. A 2,000-person organisation with 15% voluntary turnover and $80,000 average salary loses $4.8 million annually to replacement costs alone. Before counting lost productivity, institutional knowledge, or customer relationships. Organisations with weak cultures pay 33% higher salaries to attract talent that then leaves within 18 months. You are not competing on compensation. You are losing on culture.
Your competitors face the same issues.
Whoever solves culture capability first gains the advantage.
The question is not whether culture matters.
The question is who inside your organisation can build it.
The Culture Catalyst Fellowship brings together 36 HR leaders for a 24-month capability and research experience that strengthens influence, deepens insight, and builds organisational culture capability.
The Fellowship integrates three pathways.
1. World Class Coaching Education
Fellows complete Rise & Thrive Global's ICF Level 2 Accredited Positive Psychology Coaching Program, one of only two accredited positive psychology coaching programs in the world.
This internationally recognised certification equips HR professionals to embed coaching as a leadership language across the organisation, strengthening psychological safety, trust, wellbeing, and performance.
2. Evidence-Informed Research Approach
The Culture Catalyst Fellowship forms part of a collaborative research project with the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Business and Economics, investigating how HR professionals foster authentic leadership and psychological safety in organisations.
Independent data is collected through surveys, interviews, and reflective practice from participating organisations to deepen insight into:
- Leadership behaviour
- Culture alignment
- Psychological safety conditions
- Relational trust
- Coaching maturity
- Early indicators of performance uplift
This reflects real organisational experience rather than theory.
3. Global Thought Leadership Platform
Fellows co-author a landmark publication capturing 36 stories of culture capability in action. They share lived insight through podcasts, panels, and global culture forums that amplify their leadership credibility and organisational influence.
The HR Inflection Point
Artificial intelligence has shifted HR's value proposition forever.
Transactional work is moving to technology, giving HR leaders the space to focus on the work only humans can do:
- Building psychologically safe teams
- Strengthening leadership capability
- Shaping culture with intention
- Improving relational trust
- Aligning people with strategy
- Elevating human capability
As Professor Dave Ulrich says:
"Do not wait for culture to change. Be the person who changes it."
The Strategic Business Case For The C Suite
Culture is a business system, not a soft concept.
It is a strategic infrastructure that directly influences:
Customer value
Teams that escalate insights early innovate faster and deliver stronger outcomes.
Investor confidence
Culture integrity strengthens governance, reduces risk, and supports ESG expectations.
Organisational capability
Coaching maturity and leadership capability lift team performance.
Market performance
Aligned cultures accelerate execution and reduce friction across operations.
Culture is not defined by what organisations say internally. It is defined by how customers, investors, and communities experience the organisation from the outside in.
This is the backbone of all modern HR strategy and the heart of this Fellowship's design.
Calculate Your Culture ROI
Culture can be measured.
Use the Leadership Coaching ROI Calculator to estimate:
- Turnover cost reduction
- Engagement uplift
- Leadership capability growth
- Absenteeism improvement
- Productivity gain value
- Culture alignment impact
Enter your headcount, salary, and turnover rate to receive a personalised 36-month ROI projection.
The Evidence for Culture-Led Performance
Global findings consistently show that organisations with strong human capability systems experience:
- Faster innovation
- Higher engagement
- Reduced turnover
- Stronger collaboration
- Improved performance outcomes
These are the capabilities being strengthened across the 36 participating organisations.
What Organisations Gain
Strategic HR Capability
A leader skilled in coaching, influence, culture architecture, and psychological safety.
In-House Coaching Capacity
A certified internal coach, uplifting leadership capability across the organisation.
Evidence Informed Insight
Data-driven understanding of the conditions that strengthen culture.
A Documented Case Study
A credible account of cultural and leadership shifts aligned with organisational priorities.
Global Visibility
Representation across podcasts, panels, and published insights.
ESG and Governance Alignment
Human capital practices that support stakeholder expectations.
Follow The 24 Month Journey
Fellows participate in listening circles, reflective practice, global culture forums, research dialogues, and coaching immersion. These experiences create shifts in:
- Psychological safety
- Leadership behaviour
- Coaching maturity
- Collaboration
- Culture alignment
Join the insider community to receive stories, insights, and transformation updates throughout the Fellowship.
The Collaboration
Led by Catherine Plano, PhD, MCC, the Founder and CEO of Rise and Thrive Global and Director of the ICF Level 2 Accredited Positive Psychology Coaching Academy. With more than 35 years of corporate experience, she is recognised worldwide for her work in leadership development, coaching excellence, and culture transformation.
Her mission is to position HR as the architect of capability, culture, and organisational performance, grounded in the belief that HR is the centre and heartbeat of every organisation, even though it is not always used that way.
Rise & Thrive Global
Leads the Culture Catalyst Fellowship and provides the coaching capability pathway and program architecture.
University of Melbourne
Research partner investigating how HR professionals foster authentic leadership and psychological safety through independent data collection and analysis.
Professor Dave Ulrich
Strategic advisor offering guidance on HR capability, outside-in logic, and culture as a business performance system.
Your Impact Starts Here
The Culture Catalyst Fellowship is more than capability development.
It is a global research-informed movement reshaping the role of HR for the future of work.
Thirty-six organisations are proving that culture is not soft.
Culture is strategic infrastructure.
By 2027, when this research is published, these 36 organisations will have documented proof that HR capability drives measurable performance. They will use that evidence to secure resources, influence strategy, and demonstrate value to their boards. Every other organisation will still be arguing that culture matters without data to prove it. That is a three-year competitive gap.