Business Strategy Testimonials

“We engaged Leslie to help us repair a broken business strategy development process. We chose her because the approach she recommended was designed to be inclusive of employees beyond the Executive Team and 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 can make. Most importantly, Leslie’s model compelled us to stay focused on leveraging our core capabilities; she asks challenging questions in a conversational manner that encourages exploration of ideas rather than jumping to a solution too quickly. She encouraged us to capitalize on internal and external data 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 strategic planning in a very challenging time for our business when we could have easily been 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 at the top of my list when I need outside perspectives and strategic thinking in business strategy. Over our 25-year collaboration within both corporate and entrepreneurial businesses, Leslie has developed a unique skill set and experience that stands out. She is comfortable working alongside boards and management, adept at dissecting the challenges and opportunities that exist in various companies. Leslie possesses a remarkable ability to understand and pinpoint the priority focus of organizations through insightful questioning. I have never encountered anyone who works as diligently as Leslie in analyzing data, gaining insights, and synthesizing a team’s thoughts into a strategic plan that ultimately results in an executable business strategy. As a tremendously strong strategic thinker, she can anticipate future challenges and concentrate on areas that will drive the most growth. Furthermore, her relationship skills enable her to consider the implications of the plan, ensuring that the team remains aligned in executing the strategy effectively. 

David R. Shaw

Board Director, Founder of Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions

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 business strategies that deliver on 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 synthesize 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, as reflected in numerous executive testimonials.

Stacey Mowbray

Board Director

I had the pleasure of working with Leslie as we optimized our business strategy at HORN. Leslie brilliantly leveraged her first-hand experience in the B2B professional services space as a senior marketing executive, along with 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, and efficiently facilitated working sessions with key HORN stakeholders. Through her executive testimonials, she infused insights, challenged conventional thinking with finesse, and nimbly synthesized 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, Client Relationships, Horn Sales & Leadership Development