“We engaged Leslie to help us repair a broken strategy development process. We chose her because the approach she recommended for us was designed to be inclusive of employees beyond the Executive Team and was very focused on producing a workable strategy. At every step, she demonstrated we made the right choice. She is engaging at the Board level, Executive level, and employee level, tailoring her questions to the decisions the group she is working with can make. Most importantly, Leslie’s model compelled us to stay focused on leveraging our core capabilities; she asks challenging questions in a manner that is conversational and encourages exploration of ideas rather than jumping to a solution too quickly. She encouraged us to capitalize on internal and external data that was accessible to us to support our chosen strategies. That said, we finished the strategy on time, meeting every milestone along the way. The Executive team unanimously agreed she was the key difference in successfully completing our strategy in a very challenging time for our business when we could have been easily distracted by the burning fires around us. As the executive sponsor of the strategy process, I couldn’t have made a better choice to help us get our strategy process back on track.”
Stephen Fitzpatrick
Chief Financial Officer, Currency Exchange International & Exchange Bank of Canada
“Leslie is first on my list when I’m in need of some outside perspectives and thinking. We have worked together over a 25-year period within both corporate and entrepreneurial businesses. This unique combination of sectors has given rise to Leslie’s skill set and experience. Comfortable with working alongside boards and management, Leslie can dissect the challenges and opportunities that exist in companies. She has a unique ability to understand and get at the heart of what the priority focus should be in organizations by asking the right questions. I have never met anyone who works as hard as Leslie in understanding data, gaining and building insights and coalescing a team’s thinking into a strategic plan that in its final result is an executable plan. She is a tremendously strong strategic thinker with the ability to peer around corners and focus on those areas that will drive the most growth. Finally, she has the relationship skills to think through the implications of the plan to ensure an aligned team in driving the execution.”
David R. Shaw
Founder of Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions/Board Director
“I have had the pleasure of working with Leslie over several assignments across a myriad of industries. Leslie’s approach to strategic planning results in actionable plans to deliver on strategies and goals through engaged and committed teams. She has a unique ability to ask the right questions, bring teams together through input gathering and plan development, illuminate and distill customer and industry insights and synthesizes everything to create a plan that can be executed, is well understood and embraced by the team. In the end, it is the team’s plan, and she is simply an amazing catalyst and thought leader who inspires greatness in her approach.”
Stacey Mowbray
Board Director/Former President and CEO
"I had the pleasure of working with Leslie as we optimized our brand strategy at HORN. Leslie brilliantly leveraged her first-hand experience in the B2B professional services space as a senior marketing executive and solid branding fundamentals from the CPG industry to lead a collaborative branding effort. She formulated a draft brand strategy framework, informed by customer and competitive data, then efficiently and credibly facilitated working sessions with key HORN stakeholders - infusing insights, challenging conventional thinking with finesse, and nimbly synthesizing varied feedback. The result was the creation of a compelling and differentiated HORN brand positioning that multiple senior stakeholders at HORN felt a vested interest in activating in the marketplace."
Lynne Gallacher
Senior Vice-President, Marketing & Client Partnerships, Horn Sales & Leadership Development