Run Wild Retreats + Wellness is pleased to announce the promotion of its longest-standing employee, Charlotte Roennau, to a new role as Director of Mindful Leadership and Guest Transformation, effective immediately.
“I’m thrilled to have Charlotte lead our field team towards a future in which transformational travel is not just a fad, but an economic force driving more conscious consumerism and intentional living,” says Run Wild Retreats CEO Elinor Fish. “She is a natural leader and teacher, and understands that thriving and engaged employees that embody our values around mindful leadership create better experiences for our guests before, during and after the retreat.”
In this new role, Roennau will support the team’s professional development as they envision, design and deliver transformational travel experiences. This includes training retreat leaders in mindful running principles, group leadership, facilitating sharing circles and more. In concert with the whole team, her goal is for all retreats to deliver high-quality travel experiences that guests potentially find life changing.
This includes incorporating many of the insights and best practices offered by the Transformational Travel Council, a collective of global tourism stakeholders who stand for the betterment of lives and livelihoods through mindful travel that positively impacts the ecosystems and communities tourists visit.
“We are more disconnected from ourselves, each other and the nature that surrounds us than we’ve ever been,” says Roennau, who has been a retreat leader for the company since 2019. “It gives me an existential heartache on behalf of humanity! That is why mindfulness and running play such a big role in my own life. This new role as Director of Mindful Leadership and Guest Transformation lights a fire in me that could be ‘a calling’ or where my true north, core values and professional duty merge together.”
The “true north” Roennau refers to closely aligns with that of Run Wild Retreats’s mission, which is to offer transformational retreats that provide women runners the opportunity to de-stress and improve their health through trail running in nature, connecting with like-minded women, enjoying wellness and adventure activities in foreign places.
Roennau, once Denmark’s fastest woman with Olympic track-and-field aspirations, pursued a career where sports science, yoga and mindfulness intersect. She spent a decade creating peaceful co-existence, social cohesion and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, where her work with Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA) and Global Education through Sports (GES) brought the core values of sports to bring kids, families, communities and cities together in conflict areas with respect for diversity, religion, culture and gender.
About Run Wild Retreats Inc
Run Wild Retreats + Wellness is an IATA-accredited travel company, winner of Runner’s World magazine’s 2020 Travel Award for “Best Women-Only Trips” and SHAPE magazine’s 2019 Healthy Travel Award for “Best Active Outfitter.” We are 100% women-owned, a member of Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, the Adventure Travel Trade Association and Ally of the Transformational Travel Council.