The HPNA Central Academy

Unlock Your Potential with CEO of Self

Discover how to balance high-performance professionalism with personal self-care in our CEO of Self program. Aimed at people at all stages of their career journey, this program bridges the gap between work success and personal self-management. Transform your approach to self-care with proven strategies derived from executive management practices.

Revolutionize Self-Management

Adopt the mindset of a CEO in managing your most valuable asset: yourself. Our program introduces a core weekly check-in, mirroring the structure and accountability of executive board meetings, to ensure continuous self-improvement.

Learn to apply your professional skills to personal self-care, enhancing your performance both in and out of the workplace. With our suite of tools, we guide you through building a sustainable structure for personal growth and resilience.

Achieve Sustainable Self-Care

Embrace a new perspective on self-care as an integral part of your professional life. Through our unique curriculum, including the specialized form of self-compassion known as Sierra Charlie, you'll learn to prioritize self-care without compromising your career.

Our cohort-based courses offer accountability and shared learning objectives, making your journey towards self-improvement both engaging and effective. Transform self-care from an afterthought to a strategic element of your success.

Testimonials

Big Impact

The HPNA course has had a big impact on my life, helping me to organize and focus my personal development in a constructive way. I’ve always taken my personal wellbeing and development seriously but the HPNA course has really helped me to take a step up in the way I’ve structured this in order to get much better results. The course has also allowed me to take a step back and think about my longer term career and take positive steps to ensure the path I’m building is the right one for me.

Chris Pridmore

Senior Manager & Talent Coach, PWC
Central to Growth

The idea of Professionalising Self-Care is so simple that I am going to keep it central to my approach to growth.  I’ll most constructively walk away from the course with the month to month goal architecture,  which is very helpful and not something I used to have in play before.  I also think the focus on Sierra Charlie (tactical self-compassion) is encouraging something that matters as often we are a bit harsh on ourselves.

Adil Khan

Managing Director Sprintlaw UK
Valuable Tools and Habits

During this course, people will get tools and habits that they'll be able to integrate, which over time will enable them to create space for themselves.  One of the best things is interacting with those people in the class setting.  It’s just nice to be with people who believe in this kind of work - I get energy and motivation from being around people who want to work on that. I would definitely recommend the CEO of Self course.

Raphaël Benros

Product Marketer, Didimo
Exceptional Guidance

Completing the CEO of Self course provided me with exceptional guidance and structure for my continued professional development as well as giving me insights on my personal life. Working in a cohort helped me gain insights from the experiences of others and created a supportive community. I highly recommend the course to anyone who wants to refine their path and shape the direction of their career.

Mia Noerenberg Miller

Director of Marketing and Communications, Freeman School of Business, Tulane University
Delivers Value

I would recommend the course, enthusiastically. I think it genuinely delivers value and I came into it with a healthy amount of skepticism. I'm still really benefiting from the board meetings concept and structure around that. If I didn't take anything else away from the course, that in itself would be a singularly, and hugely valuable bit of insight. I've  enjoyed all of it: there's things I've put in practice already and others that I'm going to look forward to doing more of as well.

Fergus Doyle

CTO, Cubitts + Success Coach/Advisor Cambridge University Judge Business School
Very Creative, Very Original

The main thing is that it is so worth it to manage yourself with the same level of professionalism (if not more) than what we usually give at work. This insight, alone, is super important.  The course is also very creative, very original.  There are lots of little (and not so little) ideas and 'tools' to help us manage ourselves and our goals, as well as practical examples and suggestions.  For instance, I'd say I'm pretty good at self-compassion, but still this course gave me very useful ideas.

Diana Sofronieva, PhD

Science Communications Officer, Aindo
A game changer

When I’m in the thick of adversity, the CEO Habit and skills provide a structure to help me stay the course.  Reflecting on where I’ve been, the highs and lows, helps me stay confident in new environments.  This course has been a game changer.

Ron Carpenter

CEO & Owner, Beat Box Entertainment LLC
Helped define goals

Since exiting my business, I lacked an overarching goal for the next phase of my career.  Stepping outside of myself and taking time to focus on my strategy has helped me define my goals and make progress toward achieving them.

Ashley Unitt

CTO & Co-Founder, NewVoiceMedia
Reframed my approach

This course came at a time in my life where I desperately needed it. The tools, habits and community of members helped reframe my approach to long-term goals and led to a huge shift in my career trajectory this year. I am so grateful for everything I have learned and will definitely take it forwards into my future.

Alex Longson

Freelance Art Director
Core of intentionality

Nobody ever really sat me down and said, you can’t exactly plot, but you can at least have a strategy when it comes to your own career and where you want to get to. I wish I'd had a manager that had given me one of these tools, never mind the 20 or so that Carl teaches us, along with that core principle of intentionality.

Joshua May

Senior Product Manager, BP
Ongoing Strategy

The course is about learning to not burn out and making that an ongoing strategic goal for yourself. You are given easy to use tools to build the habits and discipline needed to achieve it.

Ant McGinley

Chief Development Officer, Podomedy
Establishes new standards

The CEO of Self program has exposed me to concepts and tools that I have quickly experienced the benefits of by giving structure and establishing professional standards towards areas of life that can otherwise easily be ‘amateur’. Carl’s personality and delivery has always been incredibly kind and knowledgeable whilst also challenging the standards we accept for ourselves.

Guy Porter

Professional Rugby Player, England International

Join the Waitlist

If you're ready to apply the discipline and strategic thinking of a CEO to your personal life, CEO of Self is your next big move. Enter your email address to be notified about upcoming opportunities to be part of the next HPNA Academy cohort.

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Over Thirty Years Focused on Sustainable Performance and HPNAs

From CFO to Chief People Officer and from tennis to tech, Carl has been focused for the last 30+ years on how individuals and teams sustainably perform at high levels. Burnout, career drift, short-termism and harsh self-talk all take no talent, but it requires tremendous talent to sustainably perform. It takes professionalism, grit and alignment - and most of all it takes humanity. It takes stepping into the role of CEO of Self. Alongside a career in private equity and finance, Carl founded the HPNA Central Academy to teach and train people in that process. People who are HPNAs (High Performing Non-Arrogant) have always been his focus, whether in the Academy or in company building as he has helped do most recently as Chief People Officer of the deeptech synthetic data company Hazy for the last six years.
More about Carl

There is no more complex machine than the human being, and sustainably performing at high levels through times of change, growth, disruption is fundamentally challenging.

COURse Information

Learn more about the course.

Request the latest prospectus of our upcoming HPNA Summer Programme by filling out your name and email address.
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