ECD Emotional Stakeholder Engagement Course

Level up your stakeholder relationships:
Become a Certified Emotional Stakeholder Engagement Practitioner

How people experience your organisation – as an employee, customer, partner, or community member – shapes whether they engage, trust you, or walk away.

Too often, stakeholder engagement is ad hoc, inconsistent, or purely transactional.

This practical, one-day certification course gives you several customisable methods to design and deliver stakeholder experiences that build stronger relationships and better results.

💡 What makes this different?

This course focuses on the messages you send through the experiences you create.

You’ll learn how to:
✅ Identify and map the moments that shape stakeholder relationships
✅ Design and deliver experiences that build trust
✅ Strengthen the connection between customer and employee experience
✅ Co-design agreements that support collaboration and trust

This isn’t a theory-heavy course, it’s an interactive, small group experience with structured tools and frameworks you can literally use the next day.

Why this matters

You can have the best strategy in the world and outstanding products - but still lose customers or support if the experience you give people doesn’t measure up.

When stakeholder interactions feel rushed, impersonal, or inconsistent:
❌ Stakeholders disengage or push back
❌ Partnerships become transactional and strained
❌ Internal and external values feel disconnected
❌ Communication breaks down and relationships suffer

This course gives you a better way to engage - one that's more deliberate, more consistent, and more effective. No matter how complex your stakeholder environment, if you’re dealing with humans, these methods apply.

Who is this for

People who enjoy learning in interactive, small group experiences with plenty of time for discussion, reflection and integration.

It's ideal for anyone responsible for:

✅ Volunteer management
✅ Community engagement
✅ Customer and client relationships
✅ Procurement and supplier relationships
✅ Board and stakeholder interactions
✅ Facilitating collaboration between teams

What you get

📜 Certification as an ECD Stakeholder Engagement Practitioner — a globally recognised certification and badge to enhance your professional credentials

🃏 Your own Emotional Culture Deck (NZ~$172/US$99 if purchased online) — the core resource you need in your hands for leading change conversations

⚙️ Professionally printed Stakeholder Engagement Toolkit (NZ~$163/US$96 for a digital download set) — a riders&elephants exclusive, this includes the complete Stakeholder Engagement Tools Bundle and a two bonus tools not currently available for public purchase

🌍 90 day access to the online ECD Community — an exclusive space for certified practitioners where you can connect, learn, and grow with the best! Gain access to a rich library of resources and live online meet ups (NZ~$172/US$99 for a quarterly subscription but your first 90 days are a Certification gift)

💬 A 1:1 coaching session with Certified Consultant Kathryn Ruge — personalised support to embed your learning (scheduled 4-5 weeks after the course)

👥 A 60-minute bonus workshop — reconnect with your cohort, fill in any gaps and deepen your learning (scheduled 8 weeks after the course)

🌱 50% off future ECD purchases — save with an exclusive lifetime discount to help you build and expand your toolkit at a fraction of the cost

🥗 A fully catered experience — enjoy a barista coffee to start the day, a Pink Ribbon morning tea, a fingerfood lunch and all day learning snacks

😊 Meaningful networking with like-minded professionals

🩷 A $30 donation made in your name to the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand, in support of Pink Ribbon day

Be part of history and become one of the first ECD Emotional Stakeholder Engagement Practitioners in New Zealand!

📍 History making Early Bird price — $797+GST (on sale for 10 days only from Thursday 24 April)
📍 History making Standard Ticket — $897+GST (on sale 4 May for two weeks only!)

There are only 15 tickets available in total, to ensure a premium experience and plenty of personalised support.

PS: when you click on the Get tickets button, you'll notice that there are no extra fees with our tickets because we absorb those for you (no nasty extras)! 🙌🏼 When you checkout, if the total looks bigger than you're expecting, it'll be the GST added in.

🧠 Don’t just 'manage' stakeholder relationships - design and deliver experiences that make people want to do business with you.

Your facilitator

Kia ora, I’m Kathryn Ruge - an experienced communications and stakeholder engagement strategist with a deep desire to see humans thrive at work.

After 16 years at one of the world’s most trusted and innovative airlines, I spent a decade helping leaders and organisations build trust through strategic communications - strengthening relationships, managing reputational issues, and leading change.

I specialise in developing trustworthy, emotionally skilled leaders and teams so you can communicate, innovate, and adapt to whatever is in front of you - and have a better time at work while you're doing it.

I'm a PROSCI® Certified Change Management Practitioner and have been a Certified Emotional Culture Deck Consultant for nearly four years. I'm currently the only person in New Zealand to have combined this with Gustavo Razzetti's Culture Design Certification.

With a mission to reduce workplace harm caused by psychosocial factors, I'm also one of a few people in New Zealand trained to use the Fearless Scan as a measure of psychological safety within teams, and equipped to facilitate conversations that enable better performance, stronger collaboration, and healthier team environments.

What people say

"Kathryn is energetic and passionate about the ECD and what it enables, and I loved how much human connection was baked in throughout - I felt seen by Kathryn as a human not just a generic participant."

"A great, relaxed day of learning about a clever system and tool to help get in touch with your feelings and the feelings of others. So relevant for creating awareness and trust, and providing a safe and easy opening to important conversations, whether 1:1 or in a group. Highly recommended."

"Kathryn runs a very relaxed and informative course, she has great knowledge and delivers very well."