Consulting & coaching · one year
Three companies, one team.
- Situation
- Three companies had merged into one, and their IT had to follow. A newly formed team had to move everyone onto the same systems while establishing new structures for the team as well. It had a core group and support staff across the business. One of its two leads knew me from an MIT Professional Education course that I facilitate and asked me to help structure the team.
- What I did
- Choosing the systems turned out to be the smallest part of the job. I helped them keep the setup as simple as possible and work out where AI could help. The bigger part of the work took a year. I coached both leads on the kind of leaders they wanted to be. We also worked on how to bring people onto one way of working when they had done things their own way for years..
- What changed
- A successful integration of several locations into one big and homogenous structure. Both leads were promoted.
“She has supported me to become a stronger ‘bridge builder,’ enhancing my ability to connect diverse teams and stakeholders to generate meaningful value for our business.”
New team lead, global company
Coaching
Radical ideas, the right collaborators.
- Situation
- A founder with radical ideas wanted to say what they really thought, without putting off the collaborators they needed.
- What I did
- I listened, asked questions and helped them explore what was really behind the worry.
- What changed
- The founder stopped second-guessing and went their own way, with new confidence and strength.
“Saskia guided me through the process of exploring the nuances of what was concerning me, until I settled into feeling peaceful and confident in my chosen approach.”
Founder
Mentoring
Pitch the use, not the technology.
- Situation
- A group of students with a strong technical idea entered a startup competition.
- What I did
- Before, their slide deck was a technical description of how their product works. I told them to spend more time explaining what their product could change. We reworked their pitch deck focussing on how their technology made life easier for their customers, in terms an investor would find interesting and understand.
- What changed
- They won the competition and ever since went on to gain international Excellence Prices and secure funding.
“Saskia helped our team win the Jacobs University-Bremen International Startup Competition, and her guidance has helped us take our product to the next level!”
Startup CEO
