PAA — New-Generation Leader

'New-Generation Leader' (NGL) is a flagship retraining program for political civil servants — deputy ministers, district and city akims (mayors), and deputy chairs of agencies. The program has been delivered by the Public Administration Academy under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan together with Nazarbayev University over five years, in annual cohorts from 2020 to 2025.

The role within the program is moderating the entire course and leading expert modules on design thinking and digital transformation. The training format includes strategic sessions, interactive discussions, training on real case studies, and group work with daily feedback — 240 academic hours per cohort in total.

Each cohort concludes with a defense of group projects before a commission — subgroups of five to six participants work through solutions to pressing national challenges, including projects within the country's ten national projects. The best solutions are handed over to the National Projects Monitoring Office for practical implementation.

The program brings together Kazakhstani experts with guest professors from Nazarbayev University and partner schools of public policy from Singapore and Hong Kong, covering leadership, scenario planning, economic development, and working with big data. Five years of continuous moderation at this level tested the design-thinking methodology at the highest tier of the country's public administration.