Rooted Voice
Rooted Voice is a six-session transformational cohort for leaders and emerging leaders who want to close the gap between who they are on the inside and how they show up in the world.
The cost of the program is $1,500 USD
Scholarship places available on a sliding scale (from $750).
To ensure your place in this cohort, please complete your registration by August 27 , 2026.
This is not a communication skills program. It is a deep return — to the voice that was always yours.
A portion of every cohort’s revenue is returned directly to the Madha community of the Amazon Forest. This is disclosed to all participants as an act of reciprocity.
Cohort size: 12 participants. Acceptance by conversation.
This is a rare convergence of disciplines.
Rooted Voice blends adult developmental psychology, classical opera training, mindfulness and somatic practice, yoga and pranayama, identity work, and — at the heart of the program — an encounter with a living spiritual tradition of the Madha people of the Amazon, with whom our lead facilitator studies. Together, these threads ask not “how do you speak?” but “who is doing the speaking?” and not “How do I claim my voice?” but “How do I express the voice rooted in me?”
Over six sessions, you will map the voices in your head that are not yours, liberate your body as an instrument of expression, explore the stories that have shaped your silence, and arrive at a voice that is grounded, truthful, and unmistakably your own.
What makes this genuinely different:
Most voice/leadership programs work from the outside in — breath, posture, diction. This works from the inside out, integrating developmental identity work, the body as a sonic instrument (opera tradition), and the voice as spiritual practice. There is nothing in the professional development market that combines these three lineages.
This Program is for you, if you are:
Senior leaders in transition
Executives moving into larger roles, board positions, or public-facing responsibilities who sense their current voice doesn’t match the scale of their next chapter. Often technically excellent, relationally underdeveloped in authentic expression.
Emerging leaders (high-potential)
People in their late 20s–early 40s who are being fast-tracked and feel the pressure to perform a version of leadership that doesn’t feel like them. Hungry for a more grounded, authentic model.
Founders and entrepreneurs
Those whose public voice (investor pitches, culture-building, media) must carry both conviction and humanity. Often very strong in ideation, less developed in the embodied authority that moves people.
Change agents and advocates
People whose work requires them to speak truth to power — DEI leads, policy advocates, climate professionals, social entrepreneurs. The stakes of their voice are high and the personal cost of suppression is often visible.
Creative professionals in leadership
Architects, designers, writers, artists who have moved into leadership roles and feel torn between their creative instincts and institutional demands. The voice work here reconnects identity with expression.
People in recovery of self
Those returning from burnout, illness, loss, or a significant life disruption who sense that the person they were before is not the person they want to become. Looking for structure to step into something truer.
The six sessions:
The many voices that are not yours — mapping the inner landscape of conditioned, borrowed, and performed voices
The body as the first instrument — breath, resonance, and somatic liberation through the operatic tradition
The stories that bind and the stories that free — narrative identity work through what we call the Gathering Process
The voice of the forest — a ceremonial session rooted in the living spiritual tradition of the Madha people, offered with permission and in reciprocity
Speaking from the inside out — bringing your discovered voice into the world of leadership, relationships, and public expression
The voice that is yours — a closing ceremony of integration, Voice Declaration, and commitment forward
Your Facilitators
akasha, PhD, PCC
Lead facilitator · Cultivating Leadership
akasha is a developmental coach, scholar, and pilgrim with a PhD in Human Development from Fielding Graduate University. He brings over a decade of coaching experience rooted in adult stage development, intercultural consciousness, and spirituality. He designs transformational retreats and we-space gatherings internationally, teaches at Fielding Graduate University and St. George’s University, and is a student of the Madha people of the Amazon — a living spiritual discipleship that opens the voice through ancestral chant and connection to the spirits of the living world.
Sawyer Branham
Co-facilitator · Cultivating Leadership
Sawyer is a classically trained vocalist and program architect whose career spans classical voice performance and complex systems design. At Cultivating Leadership, she holds the structural and relational container that lets transformation happen — bringing discipline, creativity, and a deep precision to every gathering she touches. On stage and in facilitation rooms alike, she understands what it means to inhabit a voice rather than simply perform one. Her work with the music series Concerts with a Cause reflects a lifelong commitment to the intersection of artistry and purpose.