Nomination Criteria

The 2024 Class of Henry Crown Fellows has been announced! Nominations for the 2026 Class will be accepted August 1-15, 2025. Please contact Cha Cha McLean for any questions or additional information.

The Henry Crown Fellowship seeks like hearted, not like minded, primarily for-profit, entrepreneurial leaders dedicated to a journey of legacy and lifelong impact. Fellows must be committed to leaning into the Fellowship experience with an open heart, open mind, and open calendar.

We seek Fellows who are at inflection points in their professional or personal lives and are looking to move from Success to Significance to Impact in their next chapter. Our Fellows are deeply committed to tackling the world’s intractable challenges and are looking toward the broader role they will play in their communities, organizations, or globally. We seek nominees whose paths have not previously intersected.

Successful Nominees Will:
  • Be Like Hearted, Not Like Minded: Share a curiosity to explore differences in perspectives, backgrounds, and upbringings with their class of Fellows.
  • Have a Track Record of Success: Have achieved considerable success as leaders in their for-profit careers, including traditional entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, family business leaders, military veterans, and non-traditional leaders.
  • Be at an Inflection Point, Either Personally or Professionally: Draw on their unique experiences; successes, adversities, failures, or changes in trajectory and be prepared to be challenged and stretched in mind and spirit.
  • Not Be Fully-Baked: Be willing and open that the Fellowship experience will encourage them to use their platform, gifts, and superpowers to make an impact in their communities, organizations, or globally.
  • Not Looking for Another Networking Opportunity: Believe deeply in the potential of Fellowship within their lives, where Fellows don’t want ‘from’ each other, but ‘for’ each other.
  • Have a Diversity of Experience: Embrace a fierce joy in a diverse class mosaic including gender, race, ethnicity, geography, industry, size of company, education, politics, religion, marital status, age, etc.
  • Understand the Venture Requirement: Stretch themselves and bring a fresh approach to a societal challenge in their community and beyond through initiatives that can be sustained long beyond the active Fellowship.
Nominees must be between the ages of 30 and 46 as of June 30, 2026, to be eligible for the Fellowship. Additionally, Nominees who are Fellows of other Aspen Institute programs are not eligible to participate.

Dates for the 2026 Class of Henry Crown Fellows

Seminar 1: Aug 11-16, 2026 in Aspen, CO
Seminar 2: May 12-19, 2027 Location TBD, dates tentative
Seminar 3: Choose between several offerings from January to March 2028
Seminar 4: Aug 14-19, 2028 in Bailey, CO

To be considered, nominees must commit to participate fully in all four seminars. They must arrive no later than 2pm on the first day and depart no earlier than 2pm on the final day.

Nomination Procedures

Individuals may not apply to the Henry Crown Fellowship Program; they must be nominated by recognized leaders of business and community organizations or by Aspen Institute trustees, Fellows, or members of the Henry Crown Fellowship Board.  Nominators are asked to submit a letter stating their reasons for recommending the candidate, with a special focus on (a) the candidate’s entrepreneurial experience and (b) why you think this is the right time in their life and career to participate in the program. Please include a résumé indicating the candidate’s professional and educational background, current position, age, email and phone number, voluntary activities and any information that will help us evaluate their qualifications for the program. Please contact Cha Cha McLean with questions or candidate suggestions.
 
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