The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Disaster and Emergency Management University (NDEMU) is now accepting applications for its Vanguard Executive Crisis Leaders Fellowship, with the application window open through to January 21, 2026.
The two-week fellowship is designed for senior-level crisis leaders with extensive experience navigating complex emergencies. Offered through FEMA’s NDEMU, the Vanguard program brings together seasoned executives from across government, academia, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to examine current and emerging national challenges through collaboration, discussion, and shared professional insight.
Participants in the fellowship engage in a structured series of seminars, expert-led roundtables, and site visits with crisis leadership practitioners. The curriculum focuses on disruptive changes affecting emergency management and crisis leadership, encouraging fellows to explore both conceptual frameworks and real-world experiences. The goal is to provide a space for candid discussion about the challenges crisis leaders face and to identify ways to strengthen preparedness at both individual and organizational levels.
The program is intended for professionals with at least 15 years of crisis leadership or emergency management experience who hold executive-level responsibility for operational or strategic decision-making. Eligible applicants include emergency management and homeland security directors, senior public sector leaders from allied disciplines such as public utilities or transportation, private-sector executives with crisis leadership experience, academics and researchers, elected officials, senior federal administrators, and leaders of nonprofit, voluntary, or philanthropic organizations. Individuals who have guided organizations through novel or unprecedented crises are also encouraged to apply.
Through the fellowship, participants examine evolving risks and the leadership dilemmas that accompany them, share and debate theoretical and practical approaches to crisis management, and collaborate on innovative strategies to improve emergency management outcomes. A central emphasis of the program is building a trusted, cross-sector network of executive-level leaders who can continue to exchange ideas and lessons learned beyond the two-week session.
Click here to learn more and apply.
(AI was used in part to facilitate this article.)