Welcome to the launch of a new podcast series designed to explore the human stories, diverse cultures, and innovative ideas driving the future of sustainability. The Colectivo Featured Fellows Podcast is officially live. Hosted by Valentina Martingell, this special series is dedicated to bringing you the lived experiences, original research, and unique perspectives of our pilot cohort of Colectivo Fellows.
In this inaugural episode, Valentina sits down with Colectivo’s founder and CEO, Laura McDermott, to unpack the origins of the fellowship, the philosophy of collective intelligence that guides it, and what listeners can expect from the episodes ahead.
Moving Beyond One-Off Conversations: The Genesis of the Programme
As a consultancy operating at the intersection of sustainability, innovation, and business transformation, Colectivo naturally attracts a steady stream of inquiries from passionate, purpose-driven early- and mid-career professionals. These individuals are eager to contribute to the global green transition, share insights, and find collaborative ways to address systemic environmental and social challenges.
In the first episode, Laura explains that while these organic, one-off conversations were deeply inspiring, they often remained isolated. The leadership team recognised a clear opportunity to build a structured, long-term community where this diverse energy could be consolidated, nurtured, and shared with the wider world.
Designing such a programme required intentional, slow preparation. Rather than launching a generic internship or standard educational curriculum, the team collaborated with community-building experts and tested several structural formats. The result is the Colectivo Fellows Programme, a flexible, human-centred fellowship model designed to cultivate mutual learning, professional ownership, and collaborative strategic thinking. This first year represents our pilot cohort, and the tone of our work is intentionally exploratory, creative, and collaborative.
Harnessing Collective Intelligence Across Borders
The core foundation of the fellowship is directly linked to the meaning of our name. In Spanish, "colectivo" translates to collective. We have always believed that resolving complex global risks, such as biodiversity loss, social inequality, and climate change, cannot be accomplished through isolated strategies or homogenous viewpoints.
True resilience requires collective intelligence: the process of bringing together diverse brains, varying cultural frameworks, and contrasting professional disciplines to co-create comprehensive systems-level solutions.
Our pilot cohort brings this philosophy to life. It consists of ten fellows representing more than seven nationalities, working across different time zones, career paths, and linguistic backgrounds. By sharing their regional insights, local regulatory challenges, and cultural expectations, our fellows enrich our collective understanding of how sustainability operates in practice across different continents. This podcast provides a dedicated platform for those voices to share their work, raise provocative questions, and inspire our broader network of business leaders.
What to Expect: Concise, Lived Insights
We understand that modern business leaders and sustainability professionals are navigating busy schedules. Therefore, we have designed this podcast series to be highly accessible, keeping each episode to a concise format of 30 minutes or less.
When you tune into future episodes, you will not hear dry, academic lectures or rehearsed corporate statements. Instead, you can expect:
Lived Experiences: Personal reflections from our fellows on how sustainability challenges manifest in their home countries.
Original Research: Highlights from our fellows' individual projects, bridging the gap between innovative theory and daily business operations.
Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Deep dives into how different cultural norms, regional behaviours, and linguistic nuances shape community engagement and sustainable practices globally.
Actionable Takeaways: Simple, practical insights that organisations can use to inform their own communication, culture, and strategy development.
The Colectivo Featured Fellows Podcast is a celebration of diverse minds coming together to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape. We invite you to listen to our warm, forward-looking introductory episode, subscribe to the series, and join us in learning from the next generation of sustainability leaders.
Are you ready to meet our fellows and explore their unique insights? Listen to the first episode of the Colectivo Featured Fellows Podcast on Spotify today, and stay tuned for our upcoming weekly episodes.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wMi22EL5Hn43pKaSO0VQl?si=gyVljM6ITeKanRNw7PJK-g
