The Desk Global Residency convenes a small, deliberate Fellowship of Founders, Operators, and senior Leaders each year, admitted by application and seated across multiple countries. The Fellowship meets virtually throughout the year and convenes in person across two or more cities, with Detroit as the anchor.
The Residency is not a course, a cohort, or a curriculum. It is a private global fellowship, a network and community of peers building inside regulated industries, cross-border markets, and public-private terrain. Fellows are admitted not for what they want to learn, but for what they are already building, the conviction they bring to the table, and what they would offer the global Fellowship.
The work of the Residency is to formalize how you lead. The work of the Fellowship is to give you the peers, the rooms across the world, and the durable relatonships that make that formalizaton stick across markets, currencies, and contexts.
DR. W.E. DA'CRUZ • FOUNDER , THE DIGITAL DIPLOMAT
Most fellowships gather people once and call the relatonships a network. The Global Residency is built differently. It is designed so Fellows do real business with one another, open markets to one another, and broker the kinds of cross-border opportunities that cannot be built from a single city or a single country.
Detroit anchors the year. Additional convenings are seated where the Fellowship is, drawing on Dr. Da'Cruz's federal, academic, and international networks across Africa, the Middle East, and the United States.
Fellows extend market access, distribution, and credibility to one another's ventures. A Lagos founder gains Detroit. A Detroit operator gains Accra. The fellowship becomes bridge.
Fellows partner, invest, refer, advise, and contact with one another. The Residency is the room where high-trust cross-border collaboration become operational, not theoritical.
Fellows are typically:
Founders, operators, or senior leaders with at least one venture, division, or program already in motion
Based across multiple continents, building inside regulated industries, cross-border markets, or public-private terrain where complexity is the operating condition
Past the proving stage but in the formalizing stage, translating proven instinct into defensible institutionsal form.
Interested in opening their market, distribution, or network to a Fellow from another country, and in being similarly opened to.
Comfortable being one of a small number of peers in a provate room with high standards and direct conversation
Seeking durable relationships across borders, not transactional networking
The 2027 Founding Fellowship closes when the seats are filled.
Dr. W.E. Da'Cruz · Founder, At the Desk Advisory
atthedeskadvisory.com · [email protected]
Rolling, by application. Each prospective Fellow is interviewed before admission.
Founding seats are filled as qualified applications are received from across the world.
Virtual opening session with the full Fellowship. Introductions, the year's frame, and
the establishing of shared standards across geographies and time zones.
Monthly virtual Convenings with the full Fellowship. Working sessions, cross-border peer cases, and guest voices from Dr. Da'Cruz's federal, academic, and international networks.
Quarterly one-to-ones with Dr. Da'Cruz, confidential strategy conversations focused
on each Fellow's specific terrain and cross-border opportunities.
The Convenings. Detroit anchors the year. Additionl convenings are seated each year based on the composition of the Fellowship, the markets the work is touching, and where the global community can build the most across borders.
Structured opportunity exchange. Fellows present, receive, and broker market opportunities to and from one another across the year. The cross-border ledger of the Fellowship.
The Fellowship continues. Once admitted, always a Fellow. Alumni Fellows retain
access to the network and select Residency events across cities and years.
Tuition is discussed in the admission conversation, after fit is established. Three tiers are available for the Inaugural Fellowship, with founding-rate pricing for the first admitted Fellows.
Founding rates are locked for any future Residency year a Fellow chooses to renew or rejoin. Payment plans and select strategic scholarships are available by exception, considered on an individual basis.
Travel to in-person Convenings is the Fellow's responsibilities. The Residency provides convening hospitality, programming, and select hosted experiences in each Convening city.
The 2027 Founding Fellowship closes when the seats are filled.
Dr. W.E. Da'Cruz · Founder, At the Desk Advisory
atthedeskadvisory.com · [email protected]