Transformative Leadership: business as unusual for the Blue Economy

The 2023 and 2025 Sustainable Ocean Solutions (SOS) Summits convened global innovators, scientists, policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs to accelerate collaborative ocean action. The 2023 SOS summit emphasized translating knowledge into practical sustainability solutions, while the 2025 SOS summit expanded this work by linking the ocean community with Silicon Valley to catalyze technology-driven and cross-sector innovation.

This talk will review the transformative 90-minute workshop that Dr. Dorothy Dankel designed for the SOS community—an interactive session built to challenge assumptions, cultivate systems thinking, and strengthen participants’ leadership capacities. It will also highlight best practices that emerged from these arenas, including designing psychologically safe collaboration spaces, using narrative and lived experience to shift perspectives, and integrating science, policy, and entrepreneurship.

Together, these experiences illustrate how “business as unusual” can unlock the creativity, courage, and cross-disciplinary insight needed to drive a resilient and equitable Blue Economy.