Our Origin Story
Our Story: Origins in Transformational Values
Integral Partnerships was born at the intersection of lived practice and cultural research: a recognition that meaningful change requires more than strategy—it requires development.
A key lineage in our founding comes through Dr. Paul H. Ray, visionary social researcher and originator of the groundbreaking Cultural Creatives study. Paul’s work illuminated a truth that had been largely invisible to mainstream narratives: tens of millions of people were already living by values of sustainability, social justice, authenticity, and spiritual integration—often quietly, and often without cultural affirmation. His research did something rare: it gave these “transformational values” a name, a scale, and a shared mirror.
The Cultural Creatives were not simply consumers or trendsetters. They were cultural regenerators—bridge-builders between inner life and outer action. And yet, their presence went largely unacknowledged by institutions shaped by Modernity’s dominant assumptions. Paul’s research helped restore visibility and legitimacy to an emerging way of life.
In 2000, Paul and his wife and collaborator Sherry Ruth Anderson co-authored Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World—a landmark text that helped seed the LOHAS movement and catalyze values-based entrepreneurship and regenerative initiatives across sectors. That same lineage flowed into Integral Partnerships as a living foundation: development as a culture, not a slogan.
Today we carry that inheritance forward—supporting leaders and organizations who sense the trailhead beneath their feet, and who are ready to align inner maturity with outer responsibility.
→ Read the fuller story of our origins and lineage.
Our Journey
We began in 2000 with a shared conviction: personal transformation and collective leadership are inseparable when shaping a better future—a future where business, government, civil society, and nature work in harmony.
Founded by a diverse team of educators, professionals, and change agents, we built our mission on the belief that deeper human development is essential for meaningful, lasting progress.
In 2008, leadership passed to founding partner Dixon de Leña, who brings decades of experience consulting and coaching leaders across industries and continents, with a focus on cultivating conscious, purpose-driven leaders and enterprises.
Today, we continue to help leaders and senior managers in organizations, communities, and Cultural Creatives develop the inner capacities, relational skills, and whole systems wisdom needed to navigate complexity, lead with authenticity, and co-create a thriving, regenerative future grounded in resilience and shared purpose.
Our Manifesto
We live in a time where old structures of organizing and leading no longer meet the complexity we face.
Enterprises, teams, and systems strain under ways of working that were built for another era.
Real transformation now comes from relational capacity —
from presence, awareness, and the quality of our commitments.
When leaders attune to the field,
when teams cross developmental thresholds,
when relationships become the medium of coordination,
everything changes.
Trust becomes structural.
Alignment becomes natural.
Creativity becomes possible again.
Transformation is not a project.
It is a disciplined way of relating —
to self, to others, and to the systems we shape.
Integral Partnerships exists to steward this shift
and support those ready to lead from a deeper form of intelligence.
Original 2025 manifesto here
