It began with a bold vision—led by Lev Gordon and a global team of changemakers—who came together to reimagine leadership education for mayors and city leaders worldwide. Drawing on decades of experience in governance, community-building, and integral development, they set out to create a program that goes beyond theory—rooted in real cities, real results, and real leadership growth.

The result is the Global Mayors Academy (GMA)—a standout among hundreds of executive education programs. Designed to empower your journey as a city leader and changemaker, GMA brings together some of the world’s leading experts in leadership, community, and city development.

Today, you can join the GMA Foundational City Leadership Program. Looking ahead, the Academy is expanding its academic offerings. In 2026, GMA will launch the world’s first integral-theory-informed, 15-month master’s degrees in city transformation — designed to deepen both theoretical grounding and practical capability for regenerative city-making at scale. These build directly on the City Leaders Program as foundational preparation:

• Master of City Administration (MCA) – “With Integral Leadership”
• Master of City Systems Development (MCSD) – “With Integral Weavership”

These degrees are designed to equip city leaders with the frameworks, wisdom, and professional recognition needed to meet the demands of 21st-century governance — where systemic, integral leadership is not optional, but essential.

Complementary Degrees for Systemic Change
To support this deeper transformation, GMA also offers complementary postgraduate pathways that focus on the inner capacities and cross-sectoral leadership needed to navigate and catalyse complexity:

• Master of Integral Leadership Coaching  (MILC)

This pathway trains coaches to support the inner capacities of leaders — especially the emotional, mental, and relational skills that shape how they think, connect, and make decisions. These capacities are essential for leadership that is both integrous and effective. As leaders face growing complexity, rather than offering answers, these coaches help leaders ask the deeper questions that invite reflection and build self-awareness — creating space for meaningful inner engagement and lasting transformation.

• Master of Integral Leadership (MIL) – “From Any Discipline”

This programme is for professionals from all kinds of backgrounds — like finance, education, public health, or government — who want to lead change from within their own fields. It’s based on the idea that creating regenerative cities takes a wide network of people who are growing personally and supported by others around them. Whether or not they work directly in cities, these leaders play a vital role in shaping systems that support long-term, positive change and civic evolution.

Together, these degrees form part of a holistic approach to evolutionary education pathways — meeting leaders where they are and preparing them to lead the future with wisdom, courage, and deep systemic insight.

GMA is powered by a world-class faculty from Living Cities Earth—the world’s largest network of experts in integral development, headquartered in Switzerland, the world’s best overall country.

With a growing portfolio of Executive Education offerings, The Global Mayors Academy mission is clear:

To inspire, interconnect, and empower 1 million leaders in 10.000 cities worldwide to

create a better future for themselves and the cities they serve.

The team behind the GMA - Living Cities Earth is the world’s largest integral city development community with more than 130 co-founders - leading experts and change-makers from 30 countries and 5 continents. LCE Association is a Swiss-registered nonprofit organisation creating positive impact in 100+ countries.

With 1000+ research publications and 2000+ years of combined experience in leadership, organisational and city development, LCE experts provided inspiration, advice and practical tools to thousands of city leaders and change-makers in 700+ cities in more than 100 countries. 

Many LCE co-founders themselves were leading remarkable city development projects and full-scale city transformations that are now part of GMA curriculum and materials. 

| LCE vision is simple: 10.000 living cities, 1 living planet.

LCE mission is to inspire, interconnect and empower 1 million leaders of positive change in 10.000 cities to create a future where people live happy healthy lives in harmony with nature.