What we have learned is that this stuff has a major impact!
It transforms lives and businesses, often to a shocking degree – we have all chosen to do this, leaving highly successful careers so that you don’t make the mistakes that we did.
Our mission
Our mission is to use our wealth of experience, and no-bullshit approach to executive, team coaching, facilitation and consulting to partner with you and inspire the best in your people, achieve high performance, and have the impact that you and your customers are excited about.
What that means for the CEOs and founders is we have everyone aligned and rowing in the same direction, clear on the actions they take when at their best as a team, which attracts and retains the right people.
This means you hit your numbers.
Values
Thryvv’s values echo those of our Founder Damian Smith, and are as follows:
Fairness – We do our best, and we do what is right even at the expense of our commercial goals to prioritize the impact that we have and over-deliver. We give and expect respect.
Going Beyond – We want to have a profound impact in the world. Through our programs when we’re influencing CEOs, founders and SLTs, it has a ripple effect on their people, on their families even, as well as in the communities and industries they’re working in. Going beyond is about creating a ripple effect that is sustainable.
Enjoying the journey – While our programs are challenging, and there’s going to be some hard work that we need to do together, it’s really important that we all enjoy this journey.
Simplicity – Another core value of thryvv. Things need to be simple. There’s a lot of padding out there, words for the sake of words. We keep it simple because that’s what people need. In keeping it simple we can have the impact we need to, and get our teams to create the magic they need to.
Irreverence – We’re here to break the rules, forge new paths and do things differently – because doing the same things and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. We bring challenging, disruptive, and overwhelmingly creative energy to solving problems. We have learned that a bit of cheekiness keeps things fresh and fun.
Our founder,
Damian Smith:
ACMA, CGMA, PCC, CPCC
Introduction
Damian Smith is a certified professional leadership coach and facilitator, and a recognized commercial leader with more than 20 years of delivering results for some of the biggest brands around the world, in the most challenging of industries.
Damian possesses a unique profile that includes a wide range of experiences in large multinationals and private companies across the decades, from back office to sales; from retail store to Global C-level board room; and today, as a coach.
Biography
An experienced leadership coach and facilitator, Damian’s passion for leadership and growth is the result of his own journey from defensiveness and toxicity to greater fulfillment and more impactful leadership. A journey with authenticity, empathy and trust at its centre.
Creating thriving cultures is Damian’s passion. His approach is powerfully real and raw, focused and visionary, yet pragmatic and human. Damian is direct, open and comfortable challenging his clients.
Damian draws on more than 800 hours of professional training as he connects his clients with what is possible, and helps them to create stretch plans and greater accountability. This allows them to fully grasp the range of possibilities in every situation, at both personal and professional levels.
Areas of specialization
- Creating thriving cultures
- Strengths awareness and
application - Self-awareness
leadership development - Managing ambiguity, complexity
and conflict - Driving vision and purpose
- Embedding values and mission
- Overcoming toxicity and defensiveness
- Authentic leadership
- Team interventions
- Team Performance
- Work-life integration
- Long-term trusting collaboration
- Leadership through influencing
- Experiential workshop design
Meet the team delivering for you
A team of seriously experienced, high caliber senior executives dedicated to delivering.
Our team has extensive experience in coaching, facilitation and design of experiential learning…
Focused on delivering leadership and cultural change, they’ve all got serious commercial chops, and have been at the sharp end of large businesses. They understand the challenges that leaders of large organizations have. But perhaps the most significant thing that they share in common is really courageous coaching.
All of our team are aligned with thryvv’s values, and as such are bold enough to actually say the hard truth. That’s what our clients really appreciate about the work we do together.
Joanna Cotton
CPCC PCC ORSC
Ex-VP in Publishing & Education MNC
Associate Partner – Americas
Biography
Jo has over 25 years’ experience developing and leading high-performing teams in sales, marketing, product innovation, and strategy. In her prior career, Jo was a VP in not one, but two global industries, the latter being the largest Global MNC in the industry.
She is also the co-founder of the Do Good Collective, a social impact initiative designed to engage and activate Women who are hungry to change the world.
She is, luckily for us, now an extremely high calibre and highly qualified team and leadership coach and faculty member world’s number one coaching school. Her passion is helping senior and emerging leaders thryvv in an increasingly complex world, lead authentically, and maximise their impact.
Jo is the safest pair of hands you can have steering the boat in a storm, tough and yet so caring, and we rely on her wisdom and incredibly insightful, balanced perspective.
Houda Benjelloun
MIA MBA CPCC ITCA
Ex Investment Banker.
Partner – Middle East & Africa
Biography
With two decades of breaking barriers as an investment banker, Houda led multi-million transactions globally, including IPOs, M&As and restructuring and is now a highly trained and experienced systemic, team and individual coach.
Houda brings our clients the same creativity, courage, and authenticity she drew on to close complex transactions successfully. Her style combines rigorous systemic thinking supported by extensive global experience, an acute intuition, and the audacity to challenge the status quo. She delivers our programs in French and English.
Houda is for us a superhero in courageous facilitation and coaching, going where others do not dare, with colossal compassion, wholly supporting our clients to get results that exceed expectations entirely.
Migena Gjerazi
MBA CPCC PCC ORSC
Associate Partner – Europe
Biography
Having had a stellar career with over 20 years in HR, and later as a finance officer, Migena is now an award-winning coach and facilitator in Copenhagen, a TEDX-er and an award-winning entrepreneur in her native diaspora. She speaks several languages and delivers our programs in English, Danish and Albanian.
Migena has led countless programs for UN agencies, engineering institutes, Amazon, Maersk, Mars and many more, with over 2.3 thousand hours spent in the coaching chair.
Her magic is supporting our clients to shine, inspire, and create empowering change. She is the queen of facilitation and the slayer of imposter syndrome.
Dana Musoiu
CPCC ACC C-OKRP – Level 2
Associate Partner – Startups
Biography
A gifted facilitator specialising in drivers of success for our smaller clients, Dana always receives incredible feedback from those she works with such as mumpreneurs, Little Grains and From Creation to Innovation.
An OKR’s evangelist and wonderfully direct, she is about results and encourages our clients to engage in transformational actions to reach their full potential, getting organised and executing. She is the get-the-right-stuff-done wizard.
Jay Mewes
Marketing, Content & Community Manager
Biography
Jay has 10 years of marketing and content experience within the coaching and leadership culture change space.
He looks after most of our brand development, marketing strategy, and technical communications here at thryvv.
Skills:
- Online digital video course creator
- Podcast producer & publication
- Videography and video editing
- Branded graphic design
- Website design & development
- Social media & online community growth
Our Certifications
We see a thryvving culture as comprising of 3 key elements:
Your thryvving culture is just 3 steps away…
You’re relying on people to execute your strategy.
If the strategy is supported by the culture and they are aligned, people will absolutely bust a gut, create and innovate, have fun and deliver results.
Are you, and your people able to state exactly what the values of the business are, and what that means for how they should behave, without referring to a document or webpage?
Are they able to make decisions when you’re not around because they have a clear compass showing how you and the company should behave and make decisions?
Embedding values allows cultural fit.
Our process discovers the actual values, not just aspirational ones, within your business and makes them actionable, empowering your teams to make their own decisions and freeing up your time.
Data from E&Y shows without purpose, businesses’:
Grow 3 times slower
Have 30% fewer innovations
Have 40% higher staff turnover
Getting clear on your purpose or ‘just cause’ is problematic. Aligning the business with that is harder still.
We understand that communicating a vision in a way that inspires others to be their best is no easy task, but it’s worth it.
Discovering and articulating the real purpose of your business is king – and the thryvving Cultures Program will help you to do just that.
You’ll find out why you and your teams are willing to go beyond, and develop a purpose and culture where you are all pulling in the same direction.
It’s not your tech, it’s not your funding, It’s not even your “first in the world idea”, brand of offering that’s your differentiator – it is collaboration that’s the number one competitive advantage – not just because it’s powerful, but because it’s as rare as hocking horse shit!
Our founder’s mentor, Jim Tamm, Author of Radical Collaboration writes: “When it comes to performance, collaboration is key”.
Creating an attention to results and a collaborative way of working throughout the organization can make all the difference to the performance of your team and in turn your business.
“The single biggest thing you can do to impact on collaboration is to reduce defensiveness.”
As part of our program, you’ll learn how to build ‘vulnerability trust’, where your teams are able to say, “I don’t know”, “I need help”, or “I’ve made a mistake” without any fear.
CEOs and Execs
We have lived the pain, experienced the pressure and have the desire to perform.
We know and fully understand your challenges and have walked in your shoes…
Bringing a combined 135+ years of blue chip stories and ideas – creating an environment of challenging enjoyment, building quick credibility and moving into deep sustainable action. Enabling your organization to flourish, feel human and provide the results required to have the impact that you want on your world.
With so much experience as senior executives for large multinational
corporations, there really aren’t that many of us out there.
We’re also expert
facilitators and coaches that have all walked in your shoes.
We have each spent a year training to create and deliver experiential workshops, and delivered hundreds in multiple industries, online and in person across 6 continents.
This is not your standard “training” – we’ve designed these experiences to create psychological safety that allows teams to go where they never thought they could.
Coaching is the art of deep listening, becoming present to what’s happening in the room for an individual, to help them to figure out where they’re currently at, and what they want to change.
It is one of the most powerful tools in our armory.
Tell us about your organization’s priorities and the cultural or leadership challenges that you are currently facing.
