Executive Seminars are designed to target senior policy and decision makers and can be added to the end of an in-country workshop or designed as a stand alone event. As a final exercize in a training event, the executive seminar provides an opportunity for senior policy-makers to come together in one room with high-level practitioner/instructors who summarize important points from the training, review specific observations made by the class, and facilitate panel discussions. Some executive seminars have provided the first occasion for all central and state agencies seriously involved in the issue at hand to meet, as well as the opportunity for key figures of state involved in the same issue from different angles of influence to participate in intense discussions resulting in high-level policy decisions. The Seminar, far from being a series of formal lectures, is organized to allow and encourage wide audience participation, exchange of ideas, and debate. Formal presentations are strictly controlled for duration to allow time for discussion. An Energy Group Moderator plays the role of catalyst and tries to elicit and stimulate maximum audience participation.

The Seminar can also serve as a means to present a first draft of the training program in order to solicit comments from the audience. This can contribute to a training needs assessment to both survey the needs of energy/environmental policy makers in different countries and to introduce and expose high-level policy makers to a training program. The Energy Group has carried out extensive series of executive seminars in India and the Philippines and has conducted a series of high level Fora on Climate Change and Development in Latin America and Asia.