You lead design or product at the highest level. Inside your company, you are the most senior voice in the room;the one who cannot show doubt, cannot think out loud, cannot ask for help without it becoming a signal. On stage, you perform. In meetings, you decide. Nowhere do you simply sit among equals and say what you actually think.
The Circle of Ten exists because that room did not. Now it does. Once a month. Ten leaders. One table. Chatham House Rule. No audience, no performance, no pitching;just the rarest thing in a senior leader’s calendar: a conversation with nothing at stake except the thinking itself.
Ten equals at one table. The host is one of them, never above them. Built for leaders, by leaders.
Chatham House Rule. The candour that a stage, a boardroom, or a panel can never allow.
Bring a real dilemma. Leave with nine perspectives you could not have accessed alone.
Every session deepens the circle. The relationships, the thinking, and the trust accumulate.
Every leader who sits at this table walks away with something they cannot get anywhere else in India’s design and product ecosystem. This is not a networking dinner. It is a working room.
The Hot Seat is yours when you need it;bring your live dilemma and leave with nine battle-tested perspectives from leaders who carry the same weight you do.
Test an idea, admit what is not working, pressure-test a strategy;without it becoming a signal inside your company or a headline outside it.
Not a room of strangers exchanging cards. A circle that reconvenes, deepens, and becomes the peer group you can call on between sessions;the people who understand the exact weight of your role.
Every session closes with The Takeaway;one actionable idea per leader, captured and distilled. You leave with a sharper lens on a problem you walked in with.
Before the community reads the non-attributed insights report, the leaders at the table receive the full distilled version;your thinking, refined and returned to you.
The portrait series, the optional byline, the annual convening;your name associated with India’s most exclusive design leadership table, not as promotion, but as recognition.
Your name on The Legacy Wall;the private archive of every leader who has ever sat at this table. The list itself becomes the credential.
There is no other table like this in India. Not for design. Not for product. Not at this altitude. A seat here is a marker of having arrived;and a place to keep growing after you have.
When you accept a seat, you know only one thing for certain: you are one of ten. The other nine are revealed only in the room. You say yes to the table, not to a name on a list;and the evening begins with a genuine moment of discovery, with every introduction fresh and every leader an equal.
The theme is public. The people never are. The room is the reveal.
Roughly three hours, early evening, in a private dining room. Casual in feel; carefully moderated underneath.
Welcome drinks; the moment the Unknown Nine become known, and the circle sees itself for the first time. First names only.
The host restates the Chatham House Rule, the no-pitch promise, and the evening’s single theme. Five minutes, then out of the way.
Each leader takes two to three minutes on the theme from their own seat; a live challenge, not a credential.
Moderated open conversation. The host steers, draws out the quiet voices, and keeps any one person from dominating.
One leader brings a live dilemma; the table solves it together. Rotates each month; a standing reason to return.
The formal session ends; dinner continues. The unstructured hour where the real relationships form.
Some seats are confirmed. The rest remain part of the Unknown Nine;revealed only in the room.
The full circle is never published in advance. To sit at the table is to trust the curation;and to discover the other nine the moment you arrive.
After each session, the distilled thinking of ten leaders becomes a non-attributed, numbered publication;written with the rigour of a journal, and shared with the community. A private evening becomes a public good. Seven findings. Three open disagreements. One honest room.
Seven findings on AI, design leadership, and the future of craft. Distilled from the inaugural table, 11 July 2026, Bengaluru.
Each Circle produces a new volume. The next table is being curated;the next theme, shaped by what this one left unresolved.
Every leader who has ever sat at the table, and every idea worth keeping. The list itself becomes the credential.
A seat that costs nothing is given away lightly. The commitment is a filter for seriousness;and it answers the single hardest problem a small, exclusive table faces: the no-show.
If you lead design or product at the highest level, this seat exists for you;a room of equals, a confidential sounding board, and the peer circle your seniority took away. Tell us who you are. Every application is read personally, and invited leaders confirm with a ₹3,800 commitment, redeemed on the night.
Ten of India’s most accomplished design and product leaders;typically with a decade or more leading teams, functions, or organisations. Curation is guarded ruthlessly; the bar is the product.
No;and that is intentional. You accept knowing only that you are one of ten. The other nine are revealed in the room. You say yes to the table, and trust the curation.
Participants are free to use what is said, but may never reveal who said it or which organisation they represent. It is what allows genuine candour among senior leaders.
A confirmed seat is secured with a ₹3,800 commitment, redeemed in full on the evening;it goes toward the private room and the dinner. It is not a ticket or a fee for access; it is a filter for seriousness that guarantees everyone who holds a seat actually arrives. The most expensive thing at the table is an empty chair.
Personally, from the host. Joining the waitlist is the first step; an invitation follows when there is a seat and a theme that fits you. A nomination from an existing member moves an application forward faster.