TalentOptima

Services

How I work with organisations.

Most partnerships start with one question: what is the strategy trying to achieve, and how can we supercharge the organisation to deliver it?

Once that diagnosis is clear, we identify and align the key people across the organisation who can carry the transformation, and put them in the driving seat.

The work is designed so the organisation keeps adapting after I leave.

There is no set path. Three potential entry points, Diagnose and decide, Mobilise and Sustain, and we start at the point of greatest need and value.

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How can we supercharge our… workforce agility, ability to transform, adoption of AI, effective decision-making, meeting effectiveness, mergers and acquisitions value, culture transformation, talent and learning practices, HR and people function, simplification efforts, silo busting

Where my own AI fluency came from, on Building with AI

Where we start

Six common problems I help organisations with

These are some of the most pressing challenges facing organisations today, and where I have a track record of delivery across industries. The scale of the work is always matched to the organisation’s need, and two or more often interconnect.

  1. Strategy into growth

    A growth plan exists; the organisation to deliver it does not yet.

    Start with: Diagnose and decide, as a decision sprint, then Mobilise.

    Read the case: Building Nike’s digital organisation

  2. Complex transformation, end to end

    The strategy is set and the organisation has to change shape to deliver it, at scale, without dropping the day job.

    Start with: Mobilise. A diagnostic first if the aim needs rechecking.

    Read the case: Reshaping Shell’s Downstream business

  3. Operating-model redesign and simplification

    Layers, spans, hand-offs and decision speed have drifted, and simplification keeps being announced without arriving.

    Start with: Diagnose and decide, through the friction and simplification lens, then Mobilise.

    Read the case: Taming complexity at global scale

  4. AI adoption and upskilling, enterprise-wide

    AI has been bought, or is about to be, and the question is what the work, the roles and the leaders have to become for it to pay.

    Start with: Diagnose and decide, through the AI value-to-work lens, then Mobilise or Sustain.

    Read the case: Enterprise AI adoption at Sanofi

  5. Talent, learning and succession

    The talent engine was built for the old business: careers, capability and succession need rebuilding for the new one.

    Start with: Diagnose and decide, through the HR function reinvention lens, then Mobilise.

    Read the case: Skills-first at Sanofi

  6. Organisational health and the capacity to lead

    Leaders are busy, engagement is flat, and the organisation has no room to lead the change it is asking for.

    Start with: Diagnose and decide, through the transformation health lens; Sustain where the agenda is continuing.

    Read the case: Creating Space to Lead

If your question is close to one of these but not on the list, the test is simple: does your strategy depend on transforming how the organisation works, the talent that runs it, or the way AI changes both? If it does, this is exactly where I can help.

Three entry points, three levels of intervention

Diagnose and decide. Mobilise. Sustain.

Diagnose and decide, Mobilise and Sustain are entry points, not stages. I can start with a diagnostic alone, join at mobilisation once the direction is set, or come in alongside your leadership team to keep the work on course. Each entry point works at three levels of intervention, and we choose the one that fits.

Diagnose and decide

For: CEOs and CHROs facing an organisational choice; strategy and transformation leaders who need the aim checked; PE sponsors who need speed to diagnosis before they commit.

Advisory decision sprint

Focused

What you get
A judgement sprint against a named decision agenda: the choices pressure-tested, the risks surfaced early, and a closing recommendation you can act on.
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How it runs
A written mandate, working sessions with the decision owners, review of the decisions that matter, one closing recommendation. AI, work, organisation and leadership treated as one system.
Proof
  1. I have worked directly with CEOs, executive committees and senior leadership teams at Sanofi, Shell and Nike on leadership, transformation and organisational performance.

The diagnostic: signal from noise

Focused or Substantial

What you get
One ambiguous organisational question turned into evidence, a decision and a plan your leadership team has committed to, with a baseline you can re-measure a year on.
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Lenses
  • AI value-to-work
  • Transformation health
  • HR function reinvention
  • Organisational friction and simplification

The diagnostics in full

Proof
  1. I was programme executive lead for CEO-led simplification and operating-model work that improved spans, layers, engagement and decision speed across a 90,000-person enterprise.

Mobilise

For: CEOs and executive committees with a transformation to land; CHROs who want the people side architected rather than bolted on; PE sponsors with a value-creation plan that turns on the organisation changing.

Assemble the transformation team

Substantial

What you get
A cross-functional team drawn from your own organisation, each member chosen for what they are best at, with a sponsor, decision rights and a mandate that lets the plan fly.
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How it runs
Sponsor and decision rights first. Then the crew: business owners, finance and value tracking, change and communication, data, HR, and the functions the change touches. Everyone plays to their strength.
Related
Designing the system that runs the change
Proof
  1. I have built and led global teams of more than 300 people, with accountability spanning Europe, the United States, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Mobilise the organisation

Substantial or Embedded

What you get
Outcome-based goals that are measured, an operating rhythm the leadership team runs itself, a culture of collaboration and trust across the team, and a live view of initiative health and value, with AI as the air-traffic control and the decision intelligence over the top.
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How it runs
Priorities into a live backlog; a cadence of decisions, not status; dashboards that show value and health, not activity; and the discipline to stop things. Phase-gated at varying intensity, designed from the outset to end in transfer. I work inside the leadership team, not at arm’s length from it.
Focused option
If a mobilisation is already in flight and you want the aim rechecked first, a Focused diagnostic rides alongside it.
Proof
  1. I partnered with the Downstream leadership team to direct a major business transformation, mobilising a 300-plus project team to take roughly $1 billion of structural cost out of the business.
  2. I led the HR integration and capability build for the company’s first digital organisation, helping lay the foundations for 35% annual ecommerce growth.

Sustain

For: Leadership teams re-measuring against a baseline; transformation sponsors and boards who want an independent view; organisations that want the next transformation to be their own.

Assurance and reassessment

Focused

What you get
Progress measured against the baseline we set, an independent view of whether the transformation is still designed and governed to land, and the course corrections that follow.

Make it a movement

Focused or Embedded

What you get
The story that helps people make sense of the work, wins celebrated as they happen, and the rule of thirds respected: a third with you, a third against, a third waiting to see which way it goes. The movement is won in the middle third.

How transformation gets done here

Focused

What you get
Knowledge, playbooks and operating rhythms transferred so the organisation runs the next one without me.
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Proof

  1. I held group-level risk ownership for organisational transformation alongside the Head of Strategy, reporting to the CEO-chaired Risk Committee.

How the work happens

The full arc, and where each entry point sits

Every engagement, whichever entry point and level of intervention, draws on the same arc. Not every engagement walks all of it, and none walks it in a straight line.

Diagnose and decide

  1. Diagnosis
  2. Plan
  3. Executive alignment

Mobilise

  1. Cross-functional mobilisation
  2. Delivery cadence

Sustain

  1. Change
  2. Transfer

Runs through all three:

  • Governance
  • Measures

What stays behind

Built to run without me

What stays behind is the point of the engagement: leaders appointed and equipped, the knowledge and skills transferred, the operating rhythms and rituals established, the measures owned by your team. The programme ends. The capability stays.

I have believed this since IMD, where the twenty years began: an organisation already holds most of the ingredients it needs to succeed, and to stay successful it has to keep learning and growing rather than lean on temporary outside support. I spent years as a Chief Learning Officer, and that belief is the centre of how I work.

That is why I work through your own people rather than an imported team. People commit to what they helped build, and what they built they can run.

How this works inside one engagement: Working with Andrew

If you can name the problem, we can find where to start. Let’s talk.

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