12-Week Live Programme - Graduate EditionThe Icarus Manoeuvre
Graduate Edition
12 weeks. 1 hour per week.
Everything the corporate world expects you to know but never teaches you.
Built for graduates and early-career professionals stepping into the machine.
Next Cohort Commences 08 Sep 2026
Led by Carl McCann, BSc MBA MIMechE - former RAF Wing Commander, VP and EMEA Senior Leadership Team Board member, and Chief of Staff EMEA at DXC Technology.
Why the Icarus Programme - Graduate Edition?
The corporate world is one of the most demanding environments you will ever operate in. And when you arrive, nobody teaches you how it actually works.
You have spent years working for your degree. You have done the internships, passed the interviews and may have landed the role - or you may still be looking. From my experience, no one really trains you to land the role and then, on day one, you are expected to perform.
Nobody teaches you how to choose the right organisation. How to make an impression in your first 90 days. How to read a P&L. How to build a personal brand. How to find a mentor - or a sponsor, which matters far more. How to navigate politics without being political. How to know what you are actually worth and how to negotiate for it. How to manage pressure without burning out before you turn thirty.
You are expected to figure it all out. The cost of figuring it out the hard way is measured in years, in money and, eventually, in your health.
This programme covers everything I wish I had known when I started - distilled from 38 years of military and corporate leadership and the mistakes I paid for so you do not have to.
Twelve weeks. One hour a week. One of the best investments you will make in your career and almost certainly the fastest return on any investment you will ever make. Not in years. In months.
You will learn more in twelve weeks than most people learn in their first five years. Not because the content is complicated. But because nobody has ever laid it out honestly, in one place, from someone who has actually been inside the machine at the highest level and come out the other side with the scars to prove it.
The outcomes. Not the theory.
LAND THE RIGHT ROLE
Choose the right employer, interview with authority and negotiate your starting salary.
READ THE CORPORATE WORLD
Understand the unwritten rules, power structures and politics nobody explains.
ACE YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS
Build credibility fast, ask the right questions and manage up from the start.
UNDERSTAND THE MONEY
Read a P&L and a forecast - and know why financial literacy drives progression.
BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND
Make your work visible to the people who matter and own your reputation.
CREATE A CAREER STRATEGY
Build a five-year plan with targets, timelines and the discipline to review it.
NAVIGATE POLITICS
Identify allies, read hierarchies and stay out of the wrong conversations.
FIND MENTORS AND SPONSORS
Know the difference between them, approach them and make the relationship work.
HANDLE DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS
Disagree with seniors, deliver bad news and resolve team conflict without damage.
KNOW YOUR VALUE
Understand your market rate, negotiate salary and protect your wellbeing.
“Real experience. Hard-earned lessons. A clear framework for corporate success.”
Who is this programme for?
For Individuals
Investing in yourself before you start - or in the first years of your career - is the single highest-return decision you can make. One job offer chosen well, one salary negotiated honestly, one burnout avoided - the return on £300 is measured in years and tens of thousands of pounds.
Reserve Your PlaceFor Organisations
Your graduate intake is your future senior leadership. The gap between what they were taught and what the corporate world demands costs you in attrition, underperformance and avoidable mistakes. This programme fills that gap - and can be tailored to your sector and graduate scheme.
Enquire About Cohort PricingGraduate cohort pricing available for 3 or more participants. Contact Carl directly to discuss tailored delivery.
Who is teaching thisBuilt from 38 years of experience at both extremes.
Carl McCann BSc MBA MIMechE spent nineteen years in the Royal Air Force, loading nuclear weapons during the Cold War and commanding over 250 people on an operational Tornado squadron through the Gulf War.
He then spent nineteen years in senior corporate leadership, rising to Chief of Staff EMEA at DXC Technology - responsible for a region generating $10 billion in annual revenue - and serving as UK and EMEA Board Member. He managed strategic accounts from $200M to $3BN, led four major enterprise transformations and turned around multiple failing contracts.
He also burned out. He knows what the corporate machine costs people - personally, professionally and financially - and he built this programme so that you don't have to learn it the hard way.
12 weeks. 1 hour per week. Everything the corporate world expects you to know but never teaches you.
| Week | Module | What you will learn |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Finding and landing the right role | How to identify the organisations and roles that match your strengths and ambitions and not just the ones that accept you. How to research a company beyond the website. What interviewers are actually looking for beneath the competency questions. How to present yourself as someone who already thinks at the next level. Salary negotiation at offer stage - why most graduates accept the first number they are given and what to do instead. How to evaluate an offer beyond the salary figure: culture, progression, learning opportunity and the quality of the people you will work with. |
| 02 | The world you have just entered | How the corporate world actually works versus how you think it works. The unwritten rules nobody tells you. Why performance alone is rarely enough. Me PLC - treating your career like a business from day one. |
| 03 | Your first 90 days | What your employer is actually watching for. How to build credibility quickly. How to ask the right questions without looking incompetent. Managing up from the start. |
| 04 | Understanding the money | How businesses make and lose money. What a P&L is and why it matters to you even if you are not in finance. Reading a forecast. Why financial literacy separates people who progress from people who plateau. |
| 05 | Building your personal brand | What people say about you when you leave the room. Visibility - how to make your work seen by the people who matter. The difference between being good at your job and being known for being good at your job. |
| 06 | Career strategy | Building a five-year plan. How to identify where you want to be and what you need to get there. Targets, timelines and the discipline of reviewing both. The talent programme story: why the person with the plan beats the person without one, almost every time. |
| 07 | Navigating organisational politics | Power structures, decision-making hierarchies and how things actually get decided. Who to know, who to trust and who to be cautious of. Building allies without being seen as political. Staying out of the wrong conversations. |
| 08 | Mentors and sponsors | The difference between a mentor and a sponsor and why you need both. How to find them, how to approach them and how to make the relationship work. What a sponsor actually does for your career that a mentor cannot. |
| 09 | Difficult conversations | Delivering bad news upward. Disagreeing with a senior leader without damaging the relationship. Handling conflict in a team. The conversations most people avoid until they become crises and how to have them early. |
| 10 | Knowing your value | Your market rate. What you are worth versus what you are paid. When and how to negotiate salary. The difference between people who get paid what they are worth and people who do not - it is rarely about performance. |
| 11 | Resilience, pressure and wellbeing | Recognising the early signs of burnout before they become a crisis. Managing pressure without absorbing it. Building habits that sustain performance over a career, not just over a quarter. |
| 12 | Your personal flight plan | Pulling it all together. A written five-year career plan, a personal brand statement, a mentor and sponsor strategy, a financial literacy baseline and a clear picture of the next promotion. What you will do differently in the next 90 days. |
How to identify the organisations and roles that match your strengths and ambitions and not just the ones that accept you. How to research a company beyond the website. What interviewers are actually looking for beneath the competency questions. How to present yourself as someone who already thinks at the next level. Salary negotiation at offer stage - why most graduates accept the first number they are given and what to do instead. How to evaluate an offer beyond the salary figure: culture, progression, learning opportunity and the quality of the people you will work with.
How the corporate world actually works versus how you think it works. The unwritten rules nobody tells you. Why performance alone is rarely enough. Me PLC - treating your career like a business from day one.
What your employer is actually watching for. How to build credibility quickly. How to ask the right questions without looking incompetent. Managing up from the start.
How businesses make and lose money. What a P&L is and why it matters to you even if you are not in finance. Reading a forecast. Why financial literacy separates people who progress from people who plateau.
What people say about you when you leave the room. Visibility - how to make your work seen by the people who matter. The difference between being good at your job and being known for being good at your job.
Building a five-year plan. How to identify where you want to be and what you need to get there. Targets, timelines and the discipline of reviewing both. The talent programme story: why the person with the plan beats the person without one, almost every time.
Power structures, decision-making hierarchies and how things actually get decided. Who to know, who to trust and who to be cautious of. Building allies without being seen as political. Staying out of the wrong conversations.
The difference between a mentor and a sponsor and why you need both. How to find them, how to approach them and how to make the relationship work. What a sponsor actually does for your career that a mentor cannot.
Delivering bad news upward. Disagreeing with a senior leader without damaging the relationship. Handling conflict in a team. The conversations most people avoid until they become crises and how to have them early.
Your market rate. What you are worth versus what you are paid. When and how to negotiate salary. The difference between people who get paid what they are worth and people who do not - it is rarely about performance.
Recognising the early signs of burnout before they become a crisis. Managing pressure without absorbing it. Building habits that sustain performance over a career, not just over a quarter.
Pulling it all together. A written five-year career plan, a personal brand statement, a mentor and sponsor strategy, a financial literacy baseline and a clear picture of the next promotion. What you will do differently in the next 90 days.
What you getReal value. Real access. Real outcomes.
Twelve live weekly group sessions
One hour each, structured, interactive and built around real experience rather than theory.
A cohort of no more than twenty graduates
People at exactly the same stage of their career, navigating exactly the same challenges. The peer relationships you build over twelve weeks are part of the value.
A written five-year career plan by week twelve
Not a template, but a personalised plan you have built session by session, reviewed and stress-tested against what the corporate world actually rewards.
Access to Carl McCann directly
Wing Commander (Retd) RAF, Gulf War veteran, former Chief of Staff EMEA for a $10BN region. Forty years of experience distilled into twelve hours of structured, honest, practical guidance.
A Leadership Readiness score
At the start and end of the programme, so you can see exactly where you started, what you have closed and where to focus next.
What is includedEverything you need. Nothing you don't.
12 Live Sessions
One hour per week with Carl McCann. Interactive, question-led, small cohort. Not a lecture - a conversation.
Programme Workbook
A session-by-session companion guide with frameworks, checklists and key insight summaries from each module.
Session Recordings
Every session recorded and available to cohort members for 12 months. You will not fall behind.
Private Cohort Community
A closed group for participants to share experience, ask questions between sessions and build a peer network.
Complimentary Book
A copy of The Icarus Manoeuvre - Carl's complete guide - included with every place on the programme.
Post-Programme 1:1
A 30-minute individual call with Carl at the end of the programme to discuss your specific situation and next steps.
Is this programme right for you?
This programme is for you if…
You are a final-year student or recent graduate about to enter or just entering the corporate world
You are in the first one to three years of your corporate career and feel the gap between what you were taught and what the job actually demands
You are ambitious and want to build a deliberate career, not a series of accidents
You want to learn how the machine really works before it teaches you the hard way
You want to protect your wellbeing while building a successful career
This programme is not for you if…
You are looking for a quick-fix or a shortcut - this is twelve weeks of honest, practical work
You are already several years into management - the original Icarus Manoeuvre programme is a better fit
You want theory without application - every session includes specific, actionable frameworks you use immediately
Compare the investmentThe cost of an education. The cost of not having one.
University degree
Three to four years
Teaches you how to think.
MBA
One to two years
Teaches you business theory.
The Icarus Manoeuvre Graduate Edition
Twelve weeks
Teaches you how the corporate world actually works, from someone who operated at the top of it for forty years.
One missed promotion costs more than this programme. One failed salary negotiation costs more than this programme. One year of slow progression because nobody told you the rules costs more than this programme.
£400 is not the cost of this programme. It is the cost of not being five years behind the people who figured it out faster than you.
InvestmentOne decision. Twelve weeks. A career launched.
Limited places at this price
Available until 31 August 2026
All places include everything listed above
Next cohort starts 08 Sep 2026
Graduate cohort pricing available for 3+ participants - email carl@icarusmanoeuvre.com
Money-back guarantee
If you attend the first two sessions and feel the programme is not right for you, Carl will refund your investment in full. No questions asked. The risk is entirely his.
Frequently asked questions
The next cohort begins 08 Sep 2026.
Places are limited to twenty graduates.
If you are serious about starting your career the right way rather than the long way, this is where that starts.
Early bird price £300 (+VAT) available until 31 August 2026 · Maximum 20 places · Next cohort begins 08 Sep 2026
Questions? Email carl@icarusmanoeuvre.com or connect on LinkedIn