Executive Retreats: Inspire Your Leadership Team
Published on September 23, 2025 | Reading time: 8 min
By Laurine Baille, Marketing at HOMANIE
Summary
Why Organize an Executive Committee Seminar?
Organizing a leadership seminar offers numerous strategic advantages for a company. It is a key moment to step back, align visions, strengthen cohesion, and drive collective momentum.
1. Align Strategic Objectives
A management seminar ensures that all members of the executive or leadership committee share a common vision for the company’s future. It provides an opportunity to adjust priorities, clarify ambitions, and define major upcoming directions together.
2. Strengthen Executive Team Cohesion
Often absorbed by their individual responsibilities, leaders may lack opportunities to connect outside the operational framework. A seminar creates a space for dialogue, active listening, and the reinforcement of interpersonal ties essential to smooth and effective governance. Discover our corporate retreat ideas.
3. Stimulate Collective Intelligence
By bringing together diverse skill sets, the seminar encourages the exchange of ideas, innovation, and collaborative decision-making. Group workshops help generate creative and shared solutions, often richer than decisions made in isolation.
4. Review Performance
It is also a time to assess past actions, analyze results, identify successes, and highlight areas for improvement. This perspective is essential to adjusting strategy with clarity and foresight.
5. Step Back from the Daily Routine
Changing the environment and pace provides a much-needed breath of fresh air. Holding a seminar in a calming or inspiring setting allows participants to step out of the office routine, ease potential tensions, and address key issues with greater serenity.
6. Create a Pivotal Moment for Inspiration and Decision-Making
Whether dealing with organizational change, a merger, an innovation project, or a strategic shift, a seminar is the right moment to mobilize leadership, secure alignment, and anticipate potential obstacles.
In short, an executive seminar is a powerful lever to move the company forward, by dedicating time to collective reflection while reinforcing cohesion among those who lead it.
“An executive seminar is an opportunity to step outside the daily routine to think long-term, share a common vision, and strengthen cohesion among decision-makers. It is a strategic moment to align objectives, stimulate leadership, and give the company new momentum.”
- Clémence Enaud, Head of Corporate Events
How Is a COMEX or CODIR Seminar Different from a Classic Seminar?
Small group, big impact
A COMEX or CODIR seminar stands apart from a traditional corporate seminar through its smaller group size. Typically bringing together 5 to 15 key decision-makers, it fosters meaningful exchanges, active participation from each member, and genuine strategic co-construction. This intimate format allows for deeper discussions, the emergence of structuring ideas, and more coherent, high-impact decision-making, making it particularly well-suited for executive committees.
Gathering a select group of top-level leaders also makes it possible to allocate a more substantial budget, often allowing for the rental of exclusive luxury villas or estates that are both intimate and discreet.
Confidentiality, comfort, and quality of dialogue
Because the issues discussed are often highly sensitive: governance, major transformations, strategic orientations, an executive seminar requires a setting that guarantees confidentiality and serenity. The environment must foster focus and active listening: high-standard accommodations, discreet staff, and comfortable workspaces. Everything is designed to build trust and enable open, fluid conversations.
The need for a stimulating and exclusive setting
Executives need to step out of their daily routines to gain perspective. A COMEX or CODIR seminar benefits greatly from being held in an inspiring, unique, and upscale location. This change of scenery stimulates creativity, broadens strategic vision, and brings fresh energy to leadership reflection. The exclusivity of the venue is not a superfluous luxury but a lever to reinforce collective commitment and spark renewed leadership dynamics.
Where to Organize Your COMEX or CODIR Seminar?
Within Homanie’s portfolio, the selection of luxury villas offers a wide range of unique executive seminar locations. Some properties are particularly well-suited for residential seminars, as their number of rooms allows each executive to enjoy the privacy and comfort they are accustomed to in spacious hotel accommodations.
A Luxury Château in Provence
The sunlit grounds and vast interiors of this château near Uzès make it an ideal venue for an exceptional seminar in the magnificent landscapes of the Gard region. From the boxwood-lined entrance, the atmosphere is enchanting, and the impression is further elevated in the meeting rooms, one of which is set within a chapel. Smaller group workshops can also be organized in this inspiring setting.
When it comes to leisure, the options are abundant: two swimming pools (including one 20 meters long), a private nightclub, a tennis court, a pétanque field, and electric bikes to explore the region.
A Green Seminar in the Rambouillet Forest
Just a few kilometers from Paris, the Rambouillet estate offers both inspiration and privacy with its surrounding forest and nine independent houses. Each house includes a living room and a kitchen, while expansive shared spaces welcome participants for meetings, meals, and group activities.
Your COMEX or CODIR can also draw inspiration from the nearby Château de Rambouillet, which once served as a presidential residence.
A Refreshing Seminar in Saint-Gervais in the Alps
Whether enjoying a snowfall, escaping the summer heat, or gaining strategic perspective from breathtaking views of Mont Blanc, an alpine chalet is an ideal destination. The Saint-Gervais seminar setting offers four chalets within the hamlet, each with multiple bedrooms ensuring maximum privacy. Three chalets are equipped with a hammam, and two with a private cinema room while both winter and summer activities provide endless opportunities to pause and recharge between strategic discussions.
Homanie Supports You in Organizing Your Executive Seminar
Venues chosen for discretion and inspiration
From the very start of your executive seminar project, Homanie listens and curates a selection of venues carefully chosen to ensure the event’s success. To guarantee productive leadership meetings, it is essential to provide settings that are both inspiring and discreet. Whether it’s an isolated estate in the heart of nature, the charm of a historic château, or a contemporary luxury villa, each property is selected to foster focus, creativity, and high-quality dialogue. These environments help create an atmosphere conducive to strategic decision-making and team cohesion.
Tailor-made services (private chef, activities, etc.)
Organizing a leadership seminar goes beyond booking a venue it means creating a bespoke experience designed with every detail in mind. Private chefs prepare refined and convivial meals, while exclusive activities (tastings, wellness, sports, cultural discoveries) and seamless logistics are all arranged by Homanie to meet the highest standards of comfort and efficiency. This personalized support frees participants from practical constraints and allows them to enjoy a truly valuable experience professionally as well as personally.
Formats tailored to leadership needs
Every seminar responds to precise objectives: strategic alignment, team-building, COMEX or CODIR cohesion, CSR initiatives, and more. Homanie’s support includes co-designing a format adapted to these goals, with well-paced working sessions, confidential reflection spaces, and essential moments of rest that strengthen group dynamics. Whether you opt for an immersive two-day seminar or a short, intensive session, the organization adapts to the specific working style and expectations of leadership teams. Homanie can even integrate bleisure elements to ensure a balance between professional and personal life, maximizing both the impact and the return on investment.
Executive Committee Seminars (COMEX & CODIR): Your Questions Answered
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The ideal length for a CODIR seminar is generally between 1.5 and 2 full days. This strikes the right balance between strategic work, team cohesion, and reflection, while also respecting the often demanding schedules of executives. Taking travel time into account:
1 day may be sufficient for a focused, operational work session (such as reviewing KPIs or making quick decisions), but it leaves little room for deeper reflection or informal exchanges.
1.5 days (with arrival the evening before) allows for an informal first evening, which is often invaluable for building group dynamics, followed by a full day of structured work.
2 full days are ideal for tackling several in-depth topics while also including activities that encourage cohesion and perspective.
Beyond two days, attention levels tend to drop—unless the seminar is immersive (such as a strategic retreat or cultural transformation program). What matters most is structuring the agenda carefully and including breaks to maintain both efficiency and the quality of exchanges.
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An executive seminar typically brings together between 6 and 12 participants. This limited format reflects the usual size of a CODIR or COMEX, which gathers the company’s top decision-makers: CEO, CFO, CHRO, Head of Sales, COO, etc.
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Activities for a COMEX or CODIR seminar should be carefully chosen to foster cohesion, strategic reflection, and renewal while meeting the high standards expected by participants. A few ideas include: a design thinking workshop on a business challenge, a private tasting in an unusual setting, or a “strategic walk” in the surrounding nature.
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Yes, organizing an executive seminar in a private venue is not only possible but often recommended, especially when sensitive or strategic topics are involved (such as restructuring, mergers, governance changes, or the launch of a major project). A private venue such as a luxury villa where the company is the sole guest significantly reduces the risk of information leaks. Staff are fully briefed on discretion, and the exclusivity also allows for greater flexibility in scheduling and space usage.
