Want to see grown executives sweat? Put them in charge of a $50B transformation challenge. Then watch the magic happen.

Here’s the brutal truth: Most leaders talk a good game about transformation, but when crisis hits, they crumble faster than a house of cards in a hurricane. That’s exactly why Duke, IE Business School, Hult, Microsoft, and Equinor are all using the same secret weapon to forge genuine transformation leaders.

Meet Transform! —the simulation that’s revolutionizing how we develop transformation leadership skills.

The Problem: Leadership Development That Actually Doesn’t

Traditional leadership programs are like learning to swim by reading a manual. Lots of theory, zero practice, and when you hit the water, you sink.

Meanwhile, real transformation requires mastering 12 interconnected skills simultaneously:

Team Mastery: Leadership, Teamwork, Complex Problem-Solving, Decision-Making

Strategic Firepower: Strategy & Transformation, Innovation, Strategic Finance, Competitive Dynamics

Stakeholder Wizardry: Board & Governance, Capital Markets & Shareholders

Performance Excellence: Strategic Clarity, Winning Mindset

Most programs teach these in isolation. Transform! throws leaders into the deep end where all 12 skills must work together—or they fail spectacularly.

The Solution: Learning by Nearly Dying (Professionally)

Picture this: You and your team are the new management team of an established company. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Transform your company and hit a $50B market cap. Small problem—you’re competing against up to six other teams who want to outperform and crush you.

“Many people get overwhelmed. They function poorly as a team. They get stressed. They make bad decisions. They are unable to collaborate on strategy. This is by design.”

Transform! doesn’t coddle participants. It subjects them to:

• Business model portfolios for long-term value creation
• Entrepreneurial mindset by juggling new business opportunities
• Digital skills by using a wide range of AI tools in practice
• Hostile competitors trying to steal your market share
• Activist investors demanding immediate results
• Time pressure that would make any management team falter
• Financial resource constraints that force impossible choices
• System thinking through a complex learning format
• Strategic dilemmas with no clear right answer

The result? Leaders who can actually lead transformation, not just talk about it.

The Magic: 1,500+ Cards of Chaos and Opportunity

With over 1,500 unique content cards, based on 100’s of real-life strategy dilemmas developed with deep insights from many of the largest companies in the world, Transform! creates infinite scenarios. Your team might face:

• How large part of the business should be ‘built with AI first’?
• Should you bring in the “M&A Shark” for aggressive growth?
• How much debt can you handle for those new gigafactories?
• Can you survive rising interest rates while funding innovation?
• Will that multi-stakeholder joint venture attempt backfire spectacularly?

Every decision cascades through the business system, teaching leaders that transformation isn’t linear—it’s a complex dance where finance, strategy, innovation, and leadership intersect in unpredictable ways.

Built on the research behind the Ten Principles of Transformation, Transform! takes participants on a deep dive, fast-paced journey into the world of C-suites and boardrooms globally. Get the Building the Transformational Company report here.

The Proof: Real Results from Real Programs

IE Business School’s Success Story:

Peter Fisk, global thought leader and Academic Director of IE’s Global Advanced Management Program, embedded Transform! as the capstone experience. The results speak volumes:

• A craft beer ecosystem created by Latin America’s largest bottling company
• A South African bank drastically reducing loan approval times
• A Japanese pharmaceutical company partnering with Silicon Valley startup for personalized medicine
• A retailer growing from 500,000 to 5 million customers in three years

“We have so many examples of great results coming from the graduates of the program… This is typically the transformational outcomes we’re looking for.”

The Format: Flexible, Scalable, Devastating

Transform! adapts to your needs:

• 2-3 day intensive formats for maximum impact
• Hybrid models stretching over months (IE’s secret sauce)
• 10-100+ participants per session
• In-person or digital delivery, you choose
• Six different industries to match your context

Whether you’re developing young talent or seasoned C-suite executives, Transform! scales the challenge appropriately. New hires get overwhelmed then breakthrough. Veterans find their real-world dilemmas reflected in the simulation.

You are the new leadership team of a well-established company, with declining sales and falling share price. The board is looking to you to lead the transformation. Can you deliver?

The Skills: All 12, All the Time

Unlike traditional programs that teach skills in silos, Transform! forces simultaneous development:

Part 1: Teams learn basic strategy and finance while making rapid-fire decisions

Part 2: Innovation strategy meets competitive dynamics under pressure

Part 3: Growth, M&A deals, activist investors, and board management collide

Participants don’t just learn about strategic finance—they use it as a competitive weapon. They don’t study teamwork—they build coalitions or watch their companies collapse. By powering through the intense experience Transform! is, participants are able to debrief, reflect and discuss their own experience, thoughts, confusion and mastery of the 12 leadership skills behind Transform! Most importantly, what are the key skills you bring back to work Monday morning?

The Bottom Line: ROI That Actually Matters

For Business Schools: Transform! becomes your signature differentiator. Students graduate with genuine transformation experience, not just great lectures.

For HR Leaders: Stop sending executives to programs that don’t prepare them for real challenges. Transform! creates leaders who can actually deliver transformation results.

For Organizations: Every dollar invested returns exponentially when leaders can navigate complexity without panic.

Develop more strategic leaders? Drive a successful transformation? Teach the building blocks of a future-fit strategy? Try Transform

The Call to Action: Stop Pretending, Start Transforming

The transformation economy is here. Companies that can’t transform will die. Leaders who can’t lead transformation will become irrelevant.

The question isn’t whether you need these skills—it’s whether you’re brave enough to develop them properly.

Transform! doesn’t just teach transformation leadership. It forgets leaders through the fire until they emerge as transformation legends.

Ready to separate the real leaders from the pretenders?

Transform! is available for business schools and organizations worldwide.

Contact us to bring this game-changing, immersive experience to your leaders.

Transform! is trusted by leading institutions including IE Business School, Duke University, Hult International Business School, Microsoft, Equinor, and dozens of other forward-thinking organizations who understand that transformation leadership can’t be learned from a textbook.

Transform! is based on the research project, Building the Transformational Company and the Ten Principles of Transformation. Developed by Chris Rangen, with over 20 years experience working with boards, C-level and strategy leaders, Transform! is anchored in real-life challenges faced at the strategic level of the world’s leading organizations. Read more.

Want to learn more about the Strategy Sims methodology? Hear how the Strategy Sims went from zero to 10.000+ people in just six years? Pre-register for our upcoming report, Strategy Sims in Action today.