About Lakefront

A Living Platform for Systemic Transformation

Lakefront is more than a residential campus—it is a dynamic hub and developmental community where global changemakers converge to co-create a regenerative future. Designed as a living laboratory, it brings together innovators, activists, and creatives committed to systemic transformation. By bridging disciplines and fostering collaboration, we aim to drive meaningful impact and tangible change.

Lakefront is not just a place—it’s a growing pulse in a global network of emergence. A space to regenerate, co-create, and make the long now come alive.

Our Purpose

We exist to amplify global impact and catalyze systemic change by equipping changemakers with the skills, environment, and community needed to navigate complexity and build a thriving future.

The Reality We Face

Humanity is in the midst of a meta-crisis, facing existential threats to life on Earth. Yet, we believe that new systems and civilizations can emerge—transforming our trajectory from destruction to harmony, within planetary boundaries and for the well-being of humans, animals, and nature alike. Even in the face of immense challenges, we choose to build towards this transformation.

Our Approach: From Inner Development to Systemic Impact

At Lakefront, we cultivate the deep human skills necessary for navigating complexity: critical thinking, sense-making, long-term visioning, and collaborative leadership. Our community fosters intercultural dialogue, trust, and courage—empowering individuals to move beyond personal growth into tangible societal change.

Rather than abstract aspirations, we focus on embedding concrete capabilities into real-world action. Our work is guided by five core areas:

Regenerative Systems Thinking – Designing economic, political, and ecological models that sustain life and strengthen communities.
Participatory and Deliberative Governance – Ensuring democratic decision-making structures that protect human agency.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration – Bringing together diverse fields to solve urgent global challenges.
Technology for the Common Good – Developing digital tools that enhance resilience and decentralization.
Deep Human Capacities – Cultivating integrity, complexity awareness, empathy, and perseverance as foundational skills for leadership and change.

Our Commitment

To create a thriving ecosystem for changemakers, we:

Invite visionary individuals from around the world.
Provide world-class skills training, personal development, and leadership experiences.
Offer a living testbed to prototype cutting-edge ideas for preferred future scenarios in an autonomous environment with 50 - 100 high-agency individuals.

How We Do It

We cultivate transformation through:

A light foundational skills program for new residents.
A residential community experience with carefully curated changemakers.
An extended global network of selected leaders and pioneers.
Inspirational lectures, seminars, and workshops.
Peer-group sharing and radical collaborative learning.

Our Evolution:
Learning from the Past,
Building the Future

Rooted in the experience of convening changemakers at Emerge Gatherings in Berlin (2018, 2021), Kyiv (2019), and Austin (2022), and operating the intentional co-living space "K9" in Stockholm, Lakefront emerges from a decade of exploration into how communities can incubate transformation.

Supported by the work of Stiftelsen Ekskäret, we continue to build platforms that integrate personal and systemic development. From the immersive dialogues at Ekskäret Island to our deep engagement with the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) framework, we create environments where leaders refine their capacity for complexity and co-create solutions that address systemic global challenges.

A call to action

Lakefront is not just a place—it’s a growing pulse in a global network of emergence.

We invite those who are ready to go beyond isolated initiatives and engage in the hard work of restructuring systems from the inside out. By combining deep personal growth with actionable strategies, we move towards a future that is regenerative, life-centric, and just.

This is not about passive optimism—it is about building new realities, together.

Project team

Tomas Björkman

Co-creator

Tomas Björkman has a long career behind him as entrepreneur in a variety of businesses within financial services, IT, property and banking – working all over Europe. He founded Investment Banking Partners AB and served as chairman of EFG Investment Bank. In 2008 Tomas established the Ekskäret Foundation in Stockholm. The foundation has established a conference facility on its island Ekskäret in the Stockholm archipelago. The mission of the foundation is to facilitate personal development and social change with the aim to help create a more conscious society. A special focus of the foundation is supporting the development of social entrepreneurs and the understanding of the complexities of social change. The foundation also operates the Ekskäret Klustret co-working space in central Stockholm with the aim to bring together organizations working towards a more conscious society.

Tomas is also a member of the Club of Rome, a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science and a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science. Among Tomas' initiatives are the Perspectiva Institute in London, Co-Creation Loft in Berlin, the Emerge media initiative (www.whatisemerging.com), the digital platform for personal growth: 29k.org/AWARE and the Inner Development Goals initiative.
Tomas has published three books: The Market Myth (2016), The Nordic Secret (2017, co-authored with Lene Andersen) and The World We Create (2019).

Helen Tsim

Emerge Institute lead

Helen Tsim is a Harvard-educated social psychologist, entrepreneur, educator, and thought leader on personal and collective transformation. With a unique journey that began with her working in sweatshops to teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Stanford University, Helen brings a rare depth of perspective to her work.

Helen has extensive expertise in scaling businesses and driving organizational transformation, with a focus on vertical development. She played a key role in the early success of Lucid Motors, helping scale the company to 200 employees ahead of its IPO in 2021. As an advisor to companies, global movements, and developing nation states, Helen is dedicated to bridging the gap between inner growth and outer impact to create a more conscious and sustainable future for humanity. Helen's upcoming TEDxTalk will explore the role of vertical development in leadership as a lever to tackle societal challenges.

Harry McNeil

Project lead

Harry McNeil is a global leader and entrepreneur dedicated to addressing complex societal challenges at the intersection of business and society. With experience as CEO across diverse industries and work spanning China, Denmark, Kenya, the U.K., and beyond, Harry has founded multiple organizations, including HS30 (uniting Sweden’s largest real estate developers) and Society Beyond, an angel investor firm. He is an active partner of the Inner Development Goals initiative, former Chair of the Ekskäret Foundation, and co-initiator of the Lakefront Project. Passionate about sustainable urban development, Harry also leads Selma Bostad, focused on transformative real estate solutions. A dedicated father, football coach for Hammarby, and regular visitor to Plum Village, Harry brings a unique blend of business acumen, mindfulness, and societal impact.

Ivo Mensch

Co-creator

Ivo is Associate Director of Emergence and Insight at Perspectiva. His focus for Perspectiva is mainly on spiritual innovation, courses development and consultancy to support individuals, organisations and communities gain insight into how to realise their goals.

Ivo design practices as a means to skilfully navigate larger arcs of cultural transition, shifts in consciousness and whatever the meta-crisis throws at us. Ivo is an ordained monk in the Soto Zen Buddhist lineage, and practice for over a decade in the wisdom school of the Diamond Approach. Besides working for Perspectiva, Ivo support individuals in their unfolding and realisation as a coach.

Ivo is a published author and have written on the inner, developmental side of entrepreneurship and worked over a decade as a journalist, covering tech, law, spirituality and as a communications consultant after a winding career in tech, yacht carpentry and greenhouse construction.

Jonna Lundberg

Event lead

Running People Culture at Inner Development Goals. Co-Founder & OwnerCo-Founder & Owner Yodabee. Co-initiator of Elevate.

Gonzalo Santellan

Partner lead

A medical doctor, health tech consultant, and Jungian psychotherapist in training. Over a decade of experience creating innovative health solutions that integrate medical expertise, applied psychology, and business strategy.

Philip Jonzon Jarl

Communications lead

Co-founder of Relate and Inner Development Goals ambassador.

Kristin Björkman

Design and Execution lead

Interior designe and project leader. Her work reflects a deep sensitivity to space and how it shapes human experience, helping to turn Lakefront into a home that inspires connection, reflection, and emergence.

"The world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and a vision of what’s possible."

— Margaret Wheatley

Visit:
Emerge Lakefront
Herbert Widmans väg 5A
Stockholm
Sweden

Contact:
hello@emergelakefront.org

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