Uniting for Collective Impact — Reflections from the Synergos Global Network Week, New York 2026
There are gatherings that end when people leave the room. And then there are gatherings that continue unfolding quietly inside us long afterward.
A couple of weeks have passed since the Synergos community came together in New York for Global Network Week, and I hope many of us are still carrying fragments of it - a conversation over coffee that shifted something; a question that arrived at exactly the right moment; the feeling of being in a room where people seemed willing to meet one another a little more honestly than usual.
A week to remember
We began with the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards - an evening dedicated to honouring lives of uncommon courage and commitment. Farwiza Farhan, whose work to protect the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra continues against immense pressure, reminded us of what moral clarity looks like in practice. Alongside her, Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, embodied another expression of Bridging Leadership: the willingness to dedicate oneself to something larger than personal ambition or recognition.
From there, we moved into two days of the GPC Gathering at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. For the second year running, we gathered among living, growing things - a space that seemed to give people permission to arrive not only professionally, but personally. A collective exhale. Questions not yet answered. Hopes not yet fully named.
On the evening of Day I, our Next Generation members gathered for a Rising Leaders Reception hosted by our Chair, Peggy Dulany. It was one of the quieter moments of the week, and one of the most hopeful - watching new relationships form in real time between people carrying deep questions about the future and their place within it.
The week then closed with our Spiritual Civilization Community Day - a space that invited us to look inward; to ask who we are beneath our roles, what sustains us, and how we remain human while trying to meet the enormity of the world's challenges.
What we explored during the GPC Gathering
Across two days, very different conversations seemed to orbit the same essential question: what does it take for people to act collectively at a time when so many forces pull us toward fragmentation, fear, and isolation?
On the care economy: happiness is trainable and measurable; loneliness is a biological need, not a pathology; and belonging - being truly known and valued - is what our economic systems were never designed to provide. Redesigning them is the work.
On collective healing: Peggy Dulany and Mark Gerzon held space for a conversation many had been waiting to have: on collective trauma, the wounded patriarch, and the question that stayed with the room long after: what is ours to carry?
On education - we heard from Irene Pritzker and Jair Ribeiro about patient, relationship-based work built on trust, radical localisation, and the belief that social enterprises need investment, not charity. And then we heard from Aaron Pan - an eighth-grade student and the youngest participant at the GPC Gathering, "Teachers and students have to have a good connection while learning something and see what can actually bring value to them later in life. If a student doesn't know what French will bring for him, he's just sitting there."
On AI: start with the problem, not the technology. And never underestimate the power of inner work. Cynthia Zeng's journey -from MIT mathematician to founding Meteorologica after a turning point at a retreat in Montana - said it clearly: "It's a magical shift when you start to do things with your heart, not with your head. The heart is much more powerful and knowledgeable than the brain. But the brain is execution. You need both."
On food systems and indigenous knowledge: perhaps the Gathering's deepest invitation -to reconsider what forms of wisdom modern systems have overlooked or forgotten altogether. The call was not for symbolic inclusion, but for genuine partnership - rooted in humility, reciprocity, and the understanding that some of the knowledge most needed for the future already exists. We need only be willing to listen differently.
What stayed with me the most from the GPC Gathering was the feeling in the room itself. Part of that was shaped by the remarkable Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, who wove movement, breath, music, and stillness through the programme. Again and again, they returned us to something easy to lose in gatherings like these: our bodies, our emotions, our shared humanity. By the time people were dancing together, it felt less like an activity and more like a remembering.
What we are carrying forward
As the week drew to a close, one thing felt increasingly clear: the challenges before us are too complex, too interconnected, and too human to be met alone. The work ahead is collective. The healing ahead is collective. And perhaps courage is collective too.
Thank you to every speaker, facilitator, artist, and member who brought not only their expertise, but their presence, their openness, and their care. It shaped the Gathering in ways no agenda ever fully can.
The conversations continue in Stockholm this October for the next GPC Gathering: Uniting for Collective Action.