New two-day event in Birmingham will offer a redesigned, in-person leadership experience
ACEVO is launching a new flagship event for civil society leaders, taking place in Birmingham on 2 and 3 February 2027.
Leadership Exchange will bring charity chief executives and senior leaders together for two days of leadership development, peer learning, reflection and collective problem-solving.
The new event has been designed in response to the changing realities of civil society leadership and feedback from attendees of ACEVO’s previous annual conference, ACEVOFest.
Rather than a traditional conference built around a series of plenary sessions, Leadership Exchange will create more space for leaders to work through the challenges they are facing, learn from their peers and consider how leadership itself needs to evolve.
The move to Birmingham is also a deliberate part of the redesign. Bringing the event to the Midlands places these vital conversations closer to more of the UK’s civil society community, while helping to make travel and accommodation more affordable for delegates travelling from across the country. The event will take place at Millennium Point, in central Birmingham, making it easy to reach by rail and public transport.
Day one, with the topic of Leading under pressure, will explore judgement, courage, legitimacy and difficult choices. Day two, framed around the topic of Leading beyond control, will focus on influence, interdependence, collaboration and regenerative approaches to leadership.
A central feature of Leadership Exchange will be two leadership labs designed to turn the event from a space for listening into a space for doing; On day one, leaders will be invited to bring their toughest leadership challenge and work through live issues with peers, exploring challenges such as financial fragility, CEO–chair relationships, coalition breakdown, culture and burnout, and political hostility. On day two, the focus widens through What can only be solved together now? a collective influence lab exploring the challenges that no organisation can address alone.
Together, the labs reflect a central idea behind the new event: leadership today requires both the ability to navigate the difficult decisions in front of us and the ability to work with others on the challenges beyond any one leader’s control.
The event will also provide dedicated space for reflection, informal networking, wellbeing and peer connection.
Jane Ide, ACEVO chief executive, said:
“ACEVO’s decision to make the event fully in person reflects the importance delegates place on being together. Feedback from ACEVOFest has consistently highlighted the value of informal conversations, reconnecting with peers and the sense of being part of a wider community of civil society leaders.
The new format builds on those strengths while responding to growing demand for more participatory and practical leadership development. Previous attendees have called for more opportunities for peer problem-solving, breakout discussion and participant-led learning, alongside the strategic and future-facing content for which ACEVOFest has become known.
Moving the event to Birmingham is also part of our commitment to making these conversations more accessible to leaders across the country. We want to bring people together in a place that is easier and more affordable for more of our community to reach, while creating the space for the kind of conversations that are increasingly important to the future of civil society leadership.
Leadership Exchange is intended to be more than a place to hear about leadership. It is a space for leaders to step away from the operational pressures of the day-to-day, think differently, have honest conversations with people who understand the realities of the role and return to their organisations with new perspectives.”