Calem Harris: The 10 Most Impactful Leaders Making a Difference, 2025 | CIO Views Magazine

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Leading with Purpose and Influence

Authentic impact is rarely flashy, but its essence is impossible to ignore. The leaders who will leave a legacy are the ones who realize that though progress begins with purpose, progress is built through action. They look beyond quarterly results or cycles and think long term, fully embracing their responsibility to the children, families, and communities in which they serve. Their decision-making is informedasmuchbyempathyasbystrategyandthusenablesthemto elevate others in the pursuit of transformative results. These leaders challenge outdated systems, provoke new thought, and pair bold ideas to change into tangible measurements of success. They create possible futures, where collective and individual potential are recognized, cultivated, supported, and set free. Their influence extends far beyond organizational boundaries and has the power to quickly redefine and establish new norms of what is possible from responsible and principled leadership. In a world in desperate need for real direction and authentically felt leadership, these individuals are visible and potential catalysts of positive social progress through needsoftheirtimegroundedbythoughtfulchoices,oneatatime.

AtCIOViews,wehonortheseempoweringleadersbydedicatingthis issuetitled“The10MostImpactfulLeadersMakingaDifference, 2025” to them. Featuring as the cover story, we have covered the successful&motivatingjourneyofCalemHarris,CEOofTopHat Engineering. We have also included the inspiring stories of Ben Chodor,CEOofCallRevu;JanetSchijns,CEOofJSGroup;Helanie Scott, CEO of Align4Profit; Lars Fledsberg, Founder and CEO of WittarioAS; Lisa Ower, EVP, People & ExternalAffairs at Eldorado Gold Corporation; Grant Stephensen, Principal of Coombabah State High School; Alexandra Sock, Founder and Group CEO of Sock Consulting Group; Yilmaz Bozan, CEO and Founder of revolutionDM; and Katherine Delikoura, Chief Compliance Officer atCouncilofEuropeDevelopmentBank.

CIO Views is a business magazine that mainly focuses on business leaders,theirjourney,viewsoncurrenteconomicstates,andallother relevant subjects that refer to the business world. Our goal is to be a leadingsourceofinformationdedicatedtoprovidingourreaderswith detailed perspectives and views of successful business leaders who aretransformingthebusinessoutlookandredefiningtheirgoals.With exclusive editions on various industries like software, education, healthcare, technology, real estate, and many more, CIO Views is driventopromoteexcellenceintheworldofbusiness.

22. Ben Chodor

Janet Schijns 28.

Helanie Scott 32.

Lars Fledsberg 38.

Lisa Ower 42.

Grant Stephensen 46.

Alexandra Sock 54.

Yilmaz Bozan 58.

Katherine Delikoura 62.

Two Major Influences: Father and USNA

Calem credits his father for shaping him into a fantastic leader. He was still in 9th grade when he attended his father's retirement ceremony, which left an indelible impact on him. Although he had never seen the kind of work his father did, the ceremony offered him a glimpse into his father's accomplishments. Calem heard stories about how his father took care of his soldiers and the people in their community, as well as about the individuals who had gone through the

correctional program he had built from scratch.

He also recalls that his father always reminded him that good leaders lead by example, morally, mentally, and physically. “Even his daily routine taught me how hard I would have to work to be the leader I wanted to be,” he says.

After his father, the United States NavalAcademy (USNA) played a pivotal role in Calem's development as a leader. “The USNAdoesn't just imbue midshipmen with the highest

values of duty, honor, and loyalty,” he points out. “It is ingrained in you as a daily habit.”At the naval academy, he was taught to be a servant leader. He learned that when difficult decisions needed to be made, he had to step up to make them; when people were going through tough times, he had to motivate and inspire them to pull through. “And, when there is a grenade thrown, you are the first to jump on it,” says Calem.

As a leader, he believes it is a privilege to see people follow him and his vision. “Consequently, you

carry the privilege/burden of ensuring their lives are enriched by their decision to follow you,” according to Calem.

Lessons Learned from Military Experience

Calem led Marines in Central and SouthAmerica, the Middle East, and on special missions inAfrica and Europe. This allowed him to work with exemplary people across the world. They belonged to different cultures, religions, and ethnicities, yet they all were trying

to accomplish the same thing: Peace, Security, and Socioeconomic stability. “My experiences taught me that true change can happen,” Calem says, “but it takes patience, hard work, discipline, and collaboration.”

Even today, he often thinks about the experiences he gained while serving in the military, as they helped him understand that true collaboration, teamwork, and meaningful dialogue are needed to achieve a common strategic objective.

Natural Creator: Building Solutions that Provide True Value

A“natural creator,” Calem is passionate about creating a cultural change for the better. He has an innate talent for building products that add value to people's lives and for developing processes or protocols that streamline operations. “This started when I was very young,” Calem shares. “My mom just reminded me of this the other day.”

He was just seven when he designed a prototype machine that could carry people in wheelchairs up the stairs. Three years later, he saw the same design in an ad for a Stair Lift. “I may not have secured a patent, but I spent weeks on different iterations of the design based on the wheelchairs I saw,” Calem recalls.

Later, when he was studying for a Master's degree, he designed a

software system that could integrate military intelligence and operations for the Special Operations Command (SOCOM). He was also in discussions with Palantir to turn the design into a real product. “That innovative ambition has stayed with me,” Calem says. “I will always continue to build solutions that provide TRUE value.”

Post-Transition: The Career Defining Moment

Since he turned 14, all that Calem had known were military values, work ethic, and a brotherhood that cannot be replaced. So, he found it difficult to transition to civilian life from the Marine Corps. Calem considers his move to civilian life a defining moment of his career.

According to him, he spent almost a year learning about his “new” self, who no longer donned the uniform.

To adapt to civilian life, he read two to three books every week, including titles on self-help and business finance. He was very active in his community, so that he could learn how to communicate without using military jargon. In addition to that, he attended several conferences.

That one year proved to be a transformative year for Calem. During this time, he also stopped listening to social media, his colleagues, and friends. Instead, he began to listen more to experts who had excelled in their careers and were either living the life he wanted or were leaders he wanted to be like. “At the conclusion of that year, I found myself,” Calem says, “the person I still am today.At the same time, he also accepted his first job in supply chain engineering. It was a completely new path in an industry that Calem still loves every single day.

ACEO's Typical Day

Calem is a father to a nine-month-old baby boy. That means he spends most of his time with him at home. He also takes care of his five dogs and three chickens. He is involved with a few non-profits as well. In addition to all that, he is building a “very successful” business. “I haveALOT going on,” Calem says.

After waking up at 5 a.m., he immediately hits the gym. His workouts energize him, allowing him to clearly think about his priorities for the day and new ideas. When he gets back home, he writes down all his

thoughts. “But I know I will only be able to get three to four items done effectively,” Calem says. “If I can knock out those three or four things, I feel it was a great day.”

At the end of each day, he evaluates what he did during the day.According to him, he determines the things he didn't accomplish and identifies new ideas generated during the day. Calem carries them into the next day's workout session.

Helping Employees Be Successful

Calem never discusses leadership solely from a professional

perspective. He believes that true leadership extends outside of the workplace and into people's personal lives and the communities in which they live.

As the CEO of Top Hat Engineering, he has created a culture in which employees experiencing hardships or unplanned transitions receive gifts, and their happy moments are celebrated. “We openly communicate with each other about global topics, and how they are impacting our local communities and families,” Calem says.

He points out that every employee

should love what they do, enjoy working with their colleagues, and feel challenged to grow in their professional and personal lives. “For that to happen, I have to set the tone to ensure our employees thrive with Top Hat Engineering or with other organizations,” Calem says. “I want them to be successful, and I will do everything in my power to help them be successful.”

Following a Fighter Pilot's Process

Calem has adopted a process that fighter pilots continue to use. It is an iterative cycle consisting of: Observe, Orient, Decide, andAct. “The goal is to be able to complete this cycle quickly and effectively,” he explains.

Unlike some of his peers, Calem does not spend a lot of time evaluating whether to pursue a product or innovation. However, he is constantly in a state of observation, which involves educating himself about the industry. He spends around three to four hours per day on that. “Alot of people would say that is excessive, but it allows me to maintain a strong understanding of the landscape of my industry, my company, and the competition,” he points out.

As a result, he is able to proceed through the cycle much more quickly. He can immediately advance to the orientation phase.And, according to him, the knowledge he gained through observation makes him feel confident that he can successfully “Decide” and “Act” on the best course of action.

Advice forAspiring Leaders

Calem's first piece of advice to aspiring leaders is to understand everything that they can about their

customers. They need to understand their current issues, how those issues can be quantified, how their product(s) can help them, how they can use their products, and other similar aspects related to their customers.

“Anyone can build products and solutions,” Calem says. “However, to be successful as a company, you have to think about the entire customer experience, from the initial point of engagement to support and lifecycle services.”

He also encourages aspiring leaders to leverage the latest technology to speed up development, add new features, and gain a competitive edge.

The Legacy: To Make a Positive Impact

Now that he is a father, Calem has started to think a lot more about the legacy he wants to leave behind. He,

however, is not keeping a count of his accomplishments. “I think more about how many people were impacted by the value I provided through my interactions, both in my personal and professional life,” Calem says.

He hopes people will share stories about how he personally helped them during their toughest times. He wants people to talk about how he encouraged them to take a leap of faith when they were grappling with self-doubt.And he hopes his family will remember how he was always there for them during every important moment in their lives.

“Alegacy isn't a title or an award,” Calem points out. “It's the positive impact you made that transcends generations.”

Ben Chodor Harnessing AI and Empowering People to Achieve Customer Intimacy

Since the beginning of his career, Ben Chodor has been a trailblazer in the technology space, businesses founded by him have redefined innovation and disrupted industries, and he's looking to do the same with his current focus on the automotive industry as the CEO of CallRevu.

Under his leadership, the company is revolutionizing the industry with its advancedAI-based solutions, which enable dealerships to engage more effectively with prospective and existing customers, selling more, and fostering loyalty.

Besides harnessing the power of technology andAI to elevate communication intelligence, Ben places a strong emphasis on empowering his team, a key factor to his success. He believes that the empowerment of employees is critical to ensuring a better service to customers. Ben leads the way he expects to be led, which includes being involved.

From Streaming Service toAIbased Service

In 1998, before Netflix introduced its video streaming service and videos appeared on the internet, Ben dove into entrepreneurship with a streaming media business, and it is this first endeavor that had him hooked on tech-driven innovation.

Following the sale of his streaming company, Ben embarked on a new venture in the healthcare sector, cofounding the pioneering digital health mobile application marketplace in 2011. This was a time when the iPhone and apps were just beginning to become a part of daily life and reliance on them was in its infancy.

Ben and his partner's first total mobile solution provided healthcare enterprises, including hospitals, continuing care facilities, and physician practices, with the capability to create individually branded, secure, multi-platform app stores to support the mobile technology use of employees and

patients. The venture not only thrived but also led Ben to an opportunity to address Congress on the nuances of FDAregulations concerning apps, delineating between medical and monitoring applications.

As President of Notified, he managed the world's only communications cloud for events, IR and PR. Subsequentially, he transitioned to CallRevu inAugust of 2023.

Views on the Use ofAI

Ben's decision to join CallRevu was driven by his goal to do something veryAI-focused, although he recognizes that it is neither an antidote nor a secret pill. Currently, in addition to his role as CEO at CallRevu, Ben also serves on the Board of CoCreations, a company specializing in aggregatingAI content.

He recalls the time, about 7 or 8 years ago, when everyone was raving about cryptocurrencies and saying, “blockchain is the future.” This led to the mushrooming of blockchain

companies. “My joke used to be, 'if you could substitute the word blockchain with database, it was not a blockchain company that was doing providence and everything that goes along with it,” he says.AI currently is in a similar phase. Everyone is getting on theAI bandwagon, believing that it is going to solve everything. “No, it is not,” Ben says.

He refers to a quote to explain how AI can help: “AI takes away the fear of the blank page. It is a tool that you have to be in control of. It helps you get things started.” Ben says that it helps in doing tasks that one prefers not to do or those that take longer to complete. “But it can't solve everything,” he adds.

Giving an example of theAI-based interactive voice response (IVR), he

points out that it can be useful only when leveraged thoughtfully and methodically. Customers, especially in the automotive industry, still prefer to talk to humans at the end of the day rather than anAI voice. “I am not buying a car from an avatar or anAI product,” Ben points out. “I still need to get to a human to close on a purchase.”

However, for Ben and his team at CallRevu, the use ofAI makes perfect sense. Previously, humans were used to type the transcript and write the summary. “If I could do this faster, more accurately, and improve engagement – the use ofAI makes a lot of sense,” Ben explains.

This is one of the most exciting things at CallRevu, Ben says. The shift from human transcription of every phone call to theAI-based

system that transcribes every single call and interaction “[It] is not a technology just for the sake of technology,” he says. “It is enabling us to be more accurate, give better information, and be faster.”

Disrupting theAutomotive Space

Currently, CallRevu operates exclusively in the automotive space, revolutionizing how dealerships engage with customers through their intelligent communication solution for call tracking & monitoring.

Ben points out that the car is one of the biggest purchases – the other being the house – made by a person, and a prospective buyer still visits a dealership to buy a car, as the process to buy it remains traditional. At dealerships, salespeople are the ones who assist a buyer in choosing

the car. CallRevu was born out of a dealership when a dealer was dissatisfied with the responses of his salespeople to customers, so he began to monitor and record their calls, and later, called his salespeople to his office to review their responses. “You could have said this,” he pointed to them, explaining how they could have responded more effectively. This led to the creation of CallRevu.

The CallRevu call monitoring system, transcribes and analyzes every call, extracting its summary, sentiments, and keywords. These actionable insights, such as keywords trigger real-time notifications, alerting managers about a salesperson's response potentially causing a misunderstanding or a missed opportunity. This, Ben explains, enables managers to intervene promptly, in real-time and clear the misunderstanding or provide additional support.

On the service side, too, the use of CallRevu is proving to be beneficial for dealers, as it provides proactive and relevant conversational insights. For example, when a customer calls to schedule an oil change, customer service can inquire about additional services like tire rotation, or tune-ups based on the data they have, leading to better customer engagement, and service.

Elevating performance within the dealership to enhance the customer experience and engagement is what makes us a leader in this space. Ben points out, “We are making the business operations of dealers more seamless, making their customer service better, enabling them to engage with their customers in a much better way, and helping them sell more cars.”

ATypical Workday and Leadership Dynamics

Upon joining CallRevu, Ben identified and addressed prevailing organizational silos, initiating cultural transformations that dismantled these barriers. His approach of listening and empowering staff has been pivotal in reshaping the company's culture. Ben's typical workday is

characterized by a mixture of engagements, including one-on-one meetings with his leadership team and direct interactions with customers. He routinely holds discussions with the CFO to assess the company's monthly progress, a practice he considers part of his fiduciary duties, especially critical in a private equity-run company like CallRevu.

Beyond his executive team, Ben ensures to connect personally with staff members who are not in his direct reporting line, reflecting his commitment to comprehensive organizational engagement. He also supports the customer service team by participating in client calls, emphasizing the value of customers and using the interactions as learning opportunities, particularly valuable as he navigates new industry terrains. Additionally, Ben also prioritizes enhancing customer intimacy through active engagement, recognizing that direct communication with clients is

invaluable. He asserts, "You can't build relationships without engaging," highlighting his approach to learning and relationship-building with customers.

As CEO, Ben's responsibilities extend to ensuring financial robustness and revenue growth. However, he adopts a unique perspective on leadership, focusing on empowering his team, inspiring motivation, and collaborating with colleagues who may possess greater expertise in specific areas. Ben describes his leadership style succinctly as "empowering," a

philosophy that also defines his selfperception.

Ben believes that a successful CEO not only holds power but also shares it, trusting his team to make pivotal decisions. This empowerment strategy not only prepares his team for potential executive roles within or outside the company but also fosters a culture of growth and autonomy.

Distinctively, Ben does not see himself as the ultimate decisionmaker. He avoids micromanagement, choosing instead to surround himself with capable individuals whose ideas and insights help shape the company's path. He values diverse perspectives, often noting that the best ideas are those he learns from others, not those that originate from him alone.

The Future

Ben's vision for CallRevu is grounded in continuous growth, securing new business, and consistently surpassing competitors, all through CallRevu's unified intelligent communication solutions. Under his leadership, CallRevu intends to not only remain the leader in its current space but also expand into new sectors by consistently innovating products and leveraging technology to redefine the automotive industry. CallRevu's strategic acquisition of TotalCX, followed by the release of TestTrack – the first immersive,AI-powered automotive training platform –underscores this commitment to innovation.Acquiring industryleading technology and talent has enabled CallRevu to innovate on a larger scale and at an even more accelerated pace.

In the coming months, CallRevu is set to introduce another groundbreakingAI-driven solution specifically designed to tackle persistent, daily business operational challenges, promising to enhance and elevate customer interactions and service efficiency within the automotive industry. This addition will further enhance CallRevu's technology suite, delivering streamlined, intelligent communication and reinforcing its market leadership.

“We want to push ourselves to the limit of what technology can achieve. Our goal is to create deeper customer intimacy,” Ben states. He highlights that SaaS-plus companies often have a tendency to undervalue customer service and intimacy, even as customer choice remains pivotal.

"For our customers, we aim to make leaving us an incredibly difficult decision," Ben asserts. "Beyond liking our product and technology, they should also like us for the customer service and the people who are there to support them. It's integral

to everything we do – both in our people and products. By prioritizing this, we ensure our ability to bring innovative, scalable solutions to market."

“We are always going to be customer and employee-first,” he adds

Message toAspiring Leaders

In his guidance to aspiring leaders, Ben underscores the significance of active listening, which he describes as a critical yet often neglected art form. He notes that many leaders fear that silence might be misconstrued as disengagement. However, Ben clarifies that true listening is not about multitasking but about fully absorbing and understanding the messages conveyed by others.

Ben emphasizes the importance of a robust finance team, a critical element he believes is often underemphasized. He advises those in technology or sales roles to ensure they are supported by skilled finance professionals, explaining that effective financial management not only secures a company's foundational aspects but also frees leaders to concentrate on fostering innovation and enhancing sales.

For emerging leaders Ben advises: "Listen, take a deep breath, fail fast and forward, and keep moving. Being thoughtful and passionate about what you're doing is essential for success.”

CEO | JS Group

Janet Schijns

Setting high goals for women in the tech industry

Being a firm believer in the saying of Thomas Edison, “Opportunity is missed by most because it's dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work,” Janet Schijns, CEO of JS Group, knows that the road to success is long and full of twists and turns. She believes success is not measured by money or power. Instead, it is a perfect combination of fulfilling one's promise to the team and customers while staying true to one's morals and living the best possible life.

The golden recipe to achieve success is to have a clear and concise plan, talent to fulfill the plan, and willingness to outwork one's competition to get to your goal.A person has to perform against all the odds to achieve victory and be willing to change when conditions change to achieve their goals.

Long journey to success

Janet stepped into the tech industry by accident. In the early phase of her career, she was working in the cosmetic industry. She was working at L'oréal and was involved in an early CRM project for her sales team where she helped the technology vendor better translate their product to business-speak. The company then asked her if she would be interested in consulting for them to help them win more deals and expand their business share. She took the offer and never looked back. This way, she pivoted away from marketing to the technology sector.

Before JS Group, Janet served as a CVP and EVP at several large firms. She mentions, “I was the Chief Channel Executive for Motorola, Chief Channel Officer for Verizon, and Chief Merchant and Services Officer for Office Depot.

During my tenure in these firms, I launched and grew multi-billion dollar businesses that were key to the transformation of the company.”

Leading JS Group is a dream come true for Janet. She is able to disrupt the technology industry working with a highly talented team and create winning game plans that produce rewarding results.

She adds, “As we have built the company, we stay driven by a simple mission to #savethechannel; in other words, to ensure that the routes to market for technology are strong and capable of driving the needed technology adoption that drives the needed change in our world.”

Tackling the battles upfront

Janet believes, “Leaders are not born; they are carved out of their life-long experiences making mistakes,

learning from the mistakes and finding a way to win.” Thus, she takes all the obstacles coming her way as a way to learn valuable lessons and advance towards new opportunities.

She quotes, “What does not destroy us propels us to growth – it is our ability to see this and act on this belief that separates successful people from those who just desire to be successful.”

Being a female in the technology industry came with its own challenges. Janet was all alone, forced to quit or create her path. Having a

strong will and determination, she structured her own path and tunneled through all her roadblocks.

To help other women in technology, she designed and created Tech Worlds Half, a safe space for women in technology to discuss their issues, career needs, and project needs and come together to keep women in the industry. She offers a piece of advice to all of us trying to navigate challenging times “be kinder than the situation calls for, show empathy and understanding in every situation, once you listen and learn the real reasons for change you can innovate”.

The tech industry is always changing and evolving, and as a leader, one needs to bend that change to one's will. Besides being focused on the change, it is necessary to take a course of action that will lead to the desired outcome.

During her leadership tenure, Janet has evolved the channel approach for several Fortune 500 firms, taking slow and low growth via traditional routes to market and finding new routes to market that led to double and triple-digit growth.

She adds, “Shifting the industry towards recurrent revenue, as-aservice solutions sold and marketed digitally has been a huge undertaking for our industry.

JS Group has developed and designed services to ease the journey for distribution, partners, and vendors. “

JS Group is a leading technology goto-market consulting firm. They offer services for channel evolution, marketing innovation, and sales enablement. Their industry-leading programs include their PartnerExpert program designed to equip organizations with the skills and tools to sell via an indirect channel, their MarketAction Planning Process (MAP) developed to accelerate revenue and growth, and their 40x ROI Social Selling Program that helps firms get leads and close business in a location independent work environment.

Maintaining a perfect balance between Work and Home

Working as the CEO of JS Group, she has to wear multiple hats to ensure high company growth. She firmly opines, “Results are what matter. No amount of progress matters if the end result is not what was desired.” She leads the team towards their responsibility of delivering the results that they commit to for their clients while maintaining the team's wellbeing.

She states, “My regular day starts with reflection: What do we need to achieve? How are we progressing on our goals? How can I better support the team? My day then moves into a

hectic schedule of client, industry, influencers, and mentees meetings as I look to ensure we are relevant and strongly positioned in the market.”

Janet is a team-oriented leader and knows that her team is a driving force in the industry as the technology sector faces unprecedented changes in sales, marketing, and channel. They work in restructuring the company's go-to-market, proffer innovative programs to capture share as well as open doors to the growing market. Capturing the growth that is inherent in the current market while building long term value is a key focus for the team.

Being a tenacious leader, she never gives up and always keeps moving ahead with her head held high and a sense of humor. For her, the best recognition comes from her daughter, who takes her mother as an inspiration and has recently joined the technology space with great results building a successful digital practice for clients.

However, in giving her best efforts, she sometimes has to make sacrifices at home. Nonetheless, she feels there is no such thing as work-life balance, it is a myth. As a leader it's more about a successful work-life blend in which she needs to ensure a healthy lifestyle that includes all the things that make her the person she is. To achieve this, she believes discipline is the thread that helps her in prioritizing herself both at work and at home.Also, when she makes a personal commitment she sticks with it, keeping her word is especially important. Her persistent efforts help her gain self-worth, which enables her

to prioritize what is important without any guilt or FOMO.

Charting the Future of JS Group

The world is on a new path as we exit more than a year of isolation and remote work. Growth is now the name of the game and Janet and her team have evolved their offerings to ensure channel acceleration in the market while simultaneously being a good partner and excellent member of the industry. For that, they are on edge of innovation, building creative new ways to maximize channel capacity while maximizing growth and crafting new ways to generate high margin revenue for their clients.

Personally, she looks forward to continuing mentoring women and supporting the cause of diversity in the industry. Helping others is a cornerstone of her leadership in the industry and one that she wants to ensure is her legacy in the technology space.

For aspiring business leaders, her special message is, “Write a plan, and document what you want. Then, go work on the plan changing it when needed but always keeping true to the plan's purpose. You will never achieve what you don't plan for, so this is the way to personal growth.”

Helanie Scott Helping Leaders Lead

Helanie Scott, CEO ofAlign4Profit, helps leaders create workplaces where everyone profits. Driven by her lifelong desire to make a positive impact on the world, Helanie has found her own unique way to satisfy that drive by helping people, especially rising leaders, improve their leadership skills.

Journey to success

Raised in a small, SouthAfrican mining town, by the age of 21 Helanie had set out on her own in Johannesburg, learned the ropes of the big city, and purchased the business that hired her. She began training actors and presenters for TV commercials and films. She also trained executives how to act more agreeably in public, behind a microphone, and in interviews. It was then she saw how leaders obsessed with rank and politics could hold back organizations from success. She soon realized that to achieve success, some leaders needed more than surface improvements in the way they interact with stakeholders and employees.

In response Helanie began researching and studying leadership and organizational development, emigrated to Canada and then to the United States, where she opened her Align4Profit consulting firm.

Looking back on her journey from mining town to Dallas, Helanie reflects, “The culmination of my life experience, years of business consulting, and colorfully diverse background manifests itself in my deeply personal Leadership ®Intimacy philosophy, which serves as the foundation of our CoachQuest Leader-as-Coach training program and all our development solutions.”

Helping leaders develop good habits

In her ongoing research, Helanie has learned that 45% of the activities people perform daily are habits. She explains, “Everyone has a mix of good habits and not-so-good habits in their personality. It's the not-so-good habits that get in the way of individual and organizational success.

For this reason,Align4Profit offers leadership development, coaching, and culture transformation services that instill the habits, practices, and actions to make strategy execution possible while engaging employees in meaningful ways.”

After 25+ years in the Human Capital Industry, Align4Profit incorporates best practices, uses science-based methods, and other lessons learned from their multi-industry and global audience experiences to deliver sustainable behavior

change. That is, behavior change that becomes habit.

Helanie adds, “We take habit change so seriously that we track it. Tracking tells us where change is taking place in your organization, who are your super engagers and influencers, and what impact the habit change has made to further growth.

This data-driven approach to development also provides insights into how to pivot in real time.”

The priceless value of failure

Helanie has also learned that strength, resilience, and ultimately success, often emerge from failure. She believes that failures in life mold a person's personality, and she goes so far as to call failure the heartbeat of success.

She tells the story of how, “As a young girl learning to ride a horse, I fell off, determined never to mount again. My father had other ideas. He made me get back on the horse and try again. I fell off again, and again, and again. Back in the saddle for the 13th time, I succeeded, never to forget the lesson repeated failure taught me.”

Helaine advises that, “Failure builds the fortitude you need to surmount the obstacles between you and success. Today's leaders need to understand that courage, grit, and learning from failure point the way to success.”

The positive impact of integrity

“Creating a positive impact is necessary for successful leaders,” Helanie advises. “Our programs help leaders thoroughly appreciate the “Why” of what they do and rarely, if

ever, to stray from their stated beliefs.”

To keepAlign4Profit on the path of integrity, the team is guided by experienced consultants with the moral compass and values that support diverse workforces. The programs they deliver are based on solid science and tested methodologies. Each program's integrity is revealed in its ability to achieve desired outcomes.

The company's emphasis on integrity manifests itself in programs that help leaders find their own way to execute their organization's strategic plans. This emphasis, Helanie explains, “helps leaders align their personal beliefs to make a meaningful difference to their employees, stakeholders, and even vendors, and ultimately they have a positive effect on society.

GrowingAlign4Profit with innovative ideas

To stay competitive,Align4Profit embraces innovation. When it comes to trying out new ideas, the team is not afraid to grab new opportunities. Progressing with the agile and flexible approach, they try out different ideas.

“Our vision drives us to involve the younger generation in crafting leadership for the future,” Helanie says, “incorporating lessons learned from the pandemic, and helping leaders understand and instill what it takes for people to perform at their best.”

“Learning and development is a crowded space,” Helanie realizes. “We set our differentiation based on behavioral science. Our habitbuilding technology provides a data-

based approach to training and development. These insights are unique in helping HR and executives make sound decisions regarding people and culture.”

Life as the CEO of the company

An early bird, Helanie likes to spend the mornings in the natural environment of her ranch, “feeding our pig, turtles and now our young peacocks. Tending to the vegetable garden and extensive flower garden. Then I dive into research and reflection. Most days I deliver virtual workshops to audiences around the world.”

Helanie's curious nature attracts her to other activities like new program development, digging into behavior changes and interacting with participants via theAlign4Profit habit-builder platform, coaching other consultants on best practices, and engaging with her external consultant network on industry-specific changes to watch and share innovative ideas and best practices.

Being a successful leader, Helanie knows the value of motivation in pushing everyone to progress. With two years of research, she developed a motivation model, called RAMPP, and uses it to spark motivation in herself and other people around her.

As a leader Helanie insists on, “being clear on my organization's purpose and telling the purpose story in a compelling and consistent way.At Align4Profit, our purpose means making a meaningful difference in the lives we touch, every life, every time.

That's a hard purpose to follow daily but keeps my team and myself inspired. Staying true to that purpose,

we often discuss how we are meaning-makers.”

While guiding aspiring leaders, Helanie pushes them to have courage

and take action, to chase their dreams without fearing failure. She cites the words of Nelson Mandela, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The

brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Balancing professional and personal life

Discipline and intentional actions are the key traits in Helanie's personality that allow her to create a balance in her life. She says, “I try to introduce new experiences in my family and my life. My latest included skydiving. For me the exhilaration of new, interesting, or unusual activities keeps me balanced. I also take time to travel (41 countries to date), entertain, see shows, even just watch a movie.”

Future prospects for the company

TheAlign4Profit team has a strong growth strategy in place, in which they will continue to scale learning that drives leaders and their teams in more profound and cost-effective ways. The most immediate focus is on bringing younger talent up to speed to become even more relevant to all generations.

Looking at Helanie Scott's approach to life and work, it's clear that her experience working and thriving in many different cultures has made her particularly adept at understanding the nuances of how leaders of all ages and from around the world can rise to the heights of extraordinary performance. In her words, “We still have a long way to go in our society to capitalize on the unique points of differences people bring to the table and truly create inclusive organizations.”

Lars Gunnar Fledsberg

Giving a new form to outdoor learning games with Wittario AS

Aserial entrepreneur with a vast 23-years managerial experience in the ICT industry, Lars Gunnar Fledsberg, Founder and CEO of WittarioAS, is developing a new way to outdoor learning games by harnessing the power of digital technologies. Wittario is a digital platform for outdoor-game based learning.

He adds, “Schools and businesses increase learning engagement and outcomes by using our gaming platform. We focus on creating fun and efficient experiences through outdoor physical activity and inspirational technology. Inspired by PokemonGo, Wittario moves audiences off their office chairs and school desks out onto a fun and effective hunt for knowledge. The best part is that anyone can create learning games for all.”

Walking the path of revolutionizing outdoor learning games

In his long career, Lars held “safe” corporate management positions until I was 42 years old. His first job was as a product manager in Telenor, a

leading telecommunications company across the Nordics andAsia with 187 million customers and annual sales of around USD 14 billion.

However, at the back of his mind, he always wanted to own a company as he enjoyed the freedom to learn and progress further. So, taking the leap of faith, he cofounded his first company, Skooler, together with the founder Tor Ove Henriksen. Skooler is an EdTech company with customers in over 100 countries worldwide.After his journey with Skooler, Lars has co founded five other companies. Four of them are successful. The most succesful company is Wittario, a company which has occupied 100% of his time the last two years.

All his adult life, Lars has been inspired to see how much school children are engaged in learning when the teacher takes the children outside of the classroom for some outdoor learning. To fill true colors in this concept, he marked the advent of Wittario, a company that delivers an EdTech solution for outdoor-game based learning.

He believes that a person is successful in business when the company manages to reach its business goals and at the same time has satisfied customers, employees, and shareholders. Working on the same notion, he drives the wheel of WittarioAS in the right direction.

Learning valuable lessons on his path

Lars states, “If you only enjoy success without meeting any roadblocks, you will most likely struggle harder to handle the situation when you meet the first heavy roadblock compared to a person who has handled multiple roadblocks on the way.”

While fueling the growth of his first company, Skooler, Lars realized the true value of the quote, “a CEO of a startup should always be fundraising.”

Amalgamating latest technologies at Wittario to create a unique solution

Wittario, an EdTech company which Lars and his colleague Tor Ove Henriksen founded in 2019, has

Founder & CEO | Wittario AS

developed a game-based mobile application that will promote learning through outdoor movement using augmented reality (AR) and GPS. The app combines reality with virtual elements to create fun and effective learning experiences for schools and companies and was rolled out to a wide audience in March 2021.

Boasting its clear vision, “learning through games and physical activity,” the team wants to change the way of learning. Lars states, “We boldly want to change a 1000-year-old proven tradition of learning by reading and listening, by improving it using education technology.

Wittario was founded on the principles of leveraging outdoor

game-based learning and how we can create a platform that accommodates for more engaging, active, and relevant learning experiences.”

Inside Lars professional and personal lives

As the CEO of Wittario, Lars has numerous hats to wear. From handling the overall responsibilities of sales, marketing, finance to product development, delivery, and support, his typical day commences at around 8AM in the office where he goes through his emails, creates a schedule for his days, and manages everyone by walking around and conversing with his employees.

After that, he meets with his staff, customers, suppliers, and external stakeholders and then leaves work to have dinner with his family at 5 PM. Later, he again works from home from around 8 PM.

Being a goal-oriented leader, he is super proud of his accomplishments. He states, “The best recognition that I have received as a business leader was when the Wittario product were launched four months ago, and quickly got users in six countries. Another great recognition is being interviewed as one of the 10 Most Successful CEOs Making a Difference in 2021 by CIO Views magazine, which is a true honor.”

Lars is well aware of when he is working and when he is off work.

With such designated work and rest hours, he is able to experience more peace and happiness in his life. It has even elevated his productivity.

With proper time analysis and allocation, Lars is able to stay on top of his schedule. Not just this, he stays aware of the schedules of people surrounding him as well and never lets his personal and professional life meddle with each other. His peace of mind comes with regular exercising and meditation.

“Motivation is the electrical power that activates the engine of success.”

Motivation is the key to keep the team dedicated to the company's long-term goals. Keeping his team's work engaging is his way of keeping his employees engaged in work. He adds, “The most powerful way to do this is to give employees the opportunity to experiment and solve problems that really matter. I frequently ask them questions such as: Where can we deliver amazing service to our customers? What's broken in our product that our team can fix? How can we optimize our customer journeys even more?”

In this way, he is able to find the flaws and fix them easily. He also spends his time and money on different social activities and personal development training.Appreciating the employees' hard work and seeking their feedback are other ways to keep the motivation flowing.

For him, motivation comes from attaining the overall company goals, receiving excellent feedback from satisfied customers, and watching a broad smile on his employees' faces.

Outlining the future plans

Lars shares, “My long-term goal for Wittario is to build the world's leading digital platform for outdoor gamebased learning.”

Personally, he shares the same goal as his business goal. He states, “In order to achieve this, my team and I need to further develop our product so that it goes viral in both the business, education, and home markets. Our strategy is executed by a world-class team which results in satisfied

customers, employees, and shareholders.”

Lars knows that learning is life-long and can enhance the understanding of the world and improve the quality of life with better opportunities. With the amazing Wittario platform, he is trying to playfully impart more access to education to everyone.

Lisa Ower

Guiding Companies Through Transformation

Lisa Ower is Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer and ExternalAffairs at Eldorado Gold Corporation and is known for being a leader who is unafraid to turn conventional thinking on its head. Throughout her career, she has consistently created practices that empower leaders and employees to work together to generate the best results possible. Her experience is based on a diverse number of industries, cultures, and some highly competitive and challenging markets. Lisa states that those experiences have given her a unique perspective on what works for organizations and how best to help companies move forward.

Lisa's career has included executive leadership positions in infrastructure,

energy, manufacturing, mining, and technology companies with operations across the world. She always brings the lens of 'what drives and motivates humans' to the conversation, helping to influence positive change not only in good times, but in challenging times as well. Lisa always steers towards creating environments where companies and employees collaborate, innovate, and thrive.

Culture produces results

“I was fortunate to be exposed to industries early in my career that celebrated innovation and transformation. The task of transforming a company and evolving its culture is challenging, but it's also incredibly rewarding to play a role in

moving an entire company and its people towards a goal and associated success,” says Lisa.

Lisa has always been fascinated by what drives and motivates people and this led her to pursue the study of education and psychology. “Each one of us wants to feel valued as an individual, able to make meaningful contributions at work, grow and build our skills, and be recognized for the impact we're making,” she states. She further says that Human Resources has given her the opportunity to directly influence the experiences of employees, which in turn translates into thriving cultures that achieve strong business results.

“In the past, Human Resources got a bad rap for being disconnected from

business strategy. That has changed. CEOs are now using this role as a strategic advantage,” Lisa adds.

Shifting

to an opportunity mindset

“You can't taste the sweet without the sour,” asserts Lisa. Success is a neverending journey that is filled with peaks and valleys, twists, and turns where you may have met opposition and even failure. We should embrace that failure, that difficult experience. It's only in those difficult moments that you can truly grow, learn, and ultimately achieve personal success. She believes that having a growth mindset can be very powerful in helping to aid success.

“Embrace the challenges. View them all as opportunities.,” says Lisa.

Lisa believes that challenges are puzzles that need to be solved. She also says you must be comfortable with uncomfortableness because it's in that state of uncomfortableness that growth ensues. Lisa has always chosen the path that scared her the most and thriving in the face of challenge is what led her to where she is today.

Breaking new ground at Eldorado Gold

Eldorado Gold is a 30-year-old, midtier gold and base metals producer with mining, development and exploration operations in Türkiye, Canada, Greece, and Romania. Headquartered in Canada, they have a highly skilled and dedicated workforce of over 4,600 team members across the globe. Their vision is to build a safe, sustainable, and high-quality business in the gold

mining sector creating value today and for future generations.

Lisa notes that Eldorado has significant value in its diverse asset portfolio. Their Türkiye operations have been a foundational asset for many years and their Lamaque operation in Quebec has been an outstanding performer since it was added to the portfolio in 2017. In addition, Eldorado's operations in Greece present exciting growth potential through the development of their world-class Skouries project.

“Innovation and agility in the way we think, act, and bring about our collective future is the key to our success. Our ambitious strategy will be delivered by our great people. It requires all of us to work together collaboratively; actively include diverse voices; share knowledge and expertise across our regions; learn from each other to drive continuous improvement, and ultimately multiply our collective potential. It will be hard work but it's an exciting journey we are on together,” says Lisa.

Driving Eldorado's vision as Chief People Officer and ExternalAffairs

Eldorado has four key strategy pillars that include People & Capabilities, Safety and Sustainability, Operational & Project Excellence, and Financial Strength & Returns. These strategic focus areas provide a framework for prioritizing and aligning work to achieve the company's vision.

Lisa notes that social license to operate is a crucial part of this framework and, in fact, table stakes in their business. The external relations side of her role has a direct impact on

social license through Indigenous, community, and public relations as well as through stakeholder management, government relations, and communications. She is working towards shaping and positioning the 'external experience' of Eldorado Gold while enabling local capability development and recruitment. “The HR side of my role includes activities aimed at enabling value creation for employees and shaping the internal experience of Eldorado Gold. Together with the social license to operate, this creates the delivery focus of our strategic pillar of 'People and Capabilities',” she explains.

On the HR side of things, Lisa is working with the team to implement initiatives that will strengthen their culture and lead Eldorado through a period of sustained growth.As a company, the organization is readying itself for future growth through additional skill-building with their Valuable Leadership model and continuation of their global listening strategy to hear directly from employees. They are also expanding inclusive diversity in the organization throughout their processes and encouraging a growth mindset amongst employees.

“We want to help evolve the face of our industry by welcoming more diverse people and building the workforce of the future. We are doing this through recruiting strategies, workforce planning, and investing in the learning and growth of people in new ways. We are also partnering with industry organizations like Women in Mining andArtemis Project to help us pioneer new ways of drawing diverse talent into our sector,” states Lisa.

Building culture through creativity and innovation

“The beauty about my role, and something I love the most, is that there is no 'typical day.' We are a fastpaced company with a lot of exciting opportunities ahead of us. We are a roll-up-your-sleeves executive team, and we are frequently on the ground and close to our operations. We are a very collaborative agile team across Eldorado,” states Lisa.

She explains some of the key strategic objectives in her role:

Ÿ We are committed to safe, inclusive, innovative workplaces –which is all about cultivating our great culture and building leadership capabilities that create that kind of workplace environment.

Ÿ Ensuring we have the best people in the right roles, in the right place, at the right time. We are seeking to build internal capabilities we need to deliver on our growth objectives today and in the future. Understanding the critical roles for our business and identifying people for those roles in the future and developing them is a key focus.

Ÿ Getting creative and innovative about sourcing diverse talent is also on our minds as is continuing to listen to our employees. We want to evolve our people practices to make sure this is the place they want to work and ensuring we continue to attract and retain the best talent.

Ÿ From an inclusive diversity perspective, we now have roadmaps in place in each country to advance this topic in a way that's most meaningful for the

region and will keep people engaged.

Challenging the status quo in your career

Lisa considers herself to be fortunate to have worked in several different types of industries from software, manufacturing technology, to oil and gas, and now mining.All these experiences have helped shape her career in different ways and the people she has worked alongside have had a huge impact on her career.

As a leader, the best recognition she says she has received is that, over the course of her career, extraordinarily talented colleagues have followed her to other companies. Lisa's personal goals as a business leader are to continue to challenge the status quo and look for innovative ways to progress the industry. She says she never wants to stop learning and growing so that she shows up as her best self for her team.

Finding a work-life balance that works for you and your company is key

Lisa believes the meaning of balance is unique to every individual. More than ever, work-life bleeds into personal life and Lisa says flexibility is essential. “It's not about face time, it's about what you deliver. Find a way to work that works for you and the company. That is the key. If you can find happiness in that, your results will speak for themselves,” she says.

Lisa's message to aspiring business leaders is to stay humble - don't forget who you are and what you value. Don't compromise on your own values. Be authentic, listen to others, don't be afraid to have a contrary view, and never stop learning.

Heart, A Leader's Mind: The Transformative Journey of

Grant Stephensen A Coach's

In the world of education, few leaders possess the unique blend of passion, dedication, and vision that defines Grant Stephensen, the Principal of Coombabah State High School. His story is one of remarkable transformation, from the high-octane world of rugby league to the serene but challenging halls of education. It is a journey that not only showcases his exceptional ability to inspire and lead but also highlights the profound impact one individual can have on an entire school community.

The Genesis of a Leader: From Rugby Fields to Classrooms

Grant Stephensen's journey into education began in an unexpected place: the rugby league fields of Queensland.A natural leader from a young age, Grant's passion for coaching was evident early on. "Alove and passion for coaching that turned into teaching," he reflects, encapsulating the seamless transition from sports to education. This shift was not just about changing professions but about transferring the discipline, teamwork, and perseverance learned on the field into the classroom.

Grant's initial foray into education took place at Harristown State High School in Toowoomba, where he served from 2001 to 2006. Here, he first demonstrated his ability to connect with students through sport, recognising the powerful role extracurricular activities play in driving both academic and personal development. His innovative approach quickly set him apart as an educator who saw beyond the traditional boundaries of the classroom, using sport as a vehicle to engage students and inspire them to achieve their best.

International Experience and Expanding Horizons

In 2007, seeking to broaden his horizons, Grant took up a teaching position at Stewards School in Harlow, England. This experience was transformative, offering him a new perspective on education.As a Math and Science teacher, Grant faced the challenge of re-engaging disengaged students. His solution was as bold as it was effective: he introduced a boxing program, providing a structured environment where students could channel their energy positively. This innovative approach not only re-engaged the students but also deepened Grant's understanding of the diverse needs of students from different backgrounds.

The experience in England enriched Grant's teaching repertoire, equipping him with new strategies and a deeper empathy for students facing various challenges. It was a pivotal moment in his career, reinforcing his belief in the importance of innovation and adaptability in education.

AReturn toAustralia: Leadership and Growth

Upon his return toAustralia in 2008, Grant joined Marsden State High School in Waterford West, Queensland, where his leadership skills began to flourish. Initially taking on the role of Rugby League Coordinator, Grant quickly moved up to become the Head of the Department of Health and Physical Education & Home Economics. His tenure at Marsden was marked by a hands-on approach to student engagement, using sport as a catalyst for academic improvement and personal growth.

Grant's leadership abilities were further recognised in 2014 when he was appointed Deputy Principal at Waterford State School. In this role, he introduced a boys' mentorship

Principal | Coombabah State High School

program that significantly improved academic outcomes and reduced disciplinary actions. The program, which involved former National Rugby League player Mark Tookey as a mentor, was a testament to Grant's ability to implement practical, innovative solutions with lasting impact.

Rising Through the Ranks: From Deputy to Principal

In 2015, Grant took on the role of Acting Deputy Principal at Wellington Point State High School. The following year, he secured a permanent position as Deputy Principal at Mabel Park State High School, where he would go on to serve asAssociate Principal from 2016 to 2021. Mabel Park, located in Logan City, presented unique challenges due to its diverse student population and rapidly changing demographics. Grant met these challenges head-on, leading the implementation of key school priorities, including Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) and introducingASOT (pedagogical skills) through Collegial Engagement.

Recognising the changing demographics, Grant was proactive in recruiting specialist staff to support the growing number of refugee students, particularly those from Syria and the Middle East. He fostered cultural understanding within the school community, exemplified by the creation of a "United Cultures Centre" and the establishment of strong links with local Indigenous Elders. Under his leadership, Mabel Park saw the development of a traditional Yarning Circle, the construction of sporting gymnasiums, a dance studio, and a STEM lab, all aimed at enhancing student engagement and improving attendance and enrolment numbers.

ALeader in High Demand

Between 2019 and 2021, Grant's leadership was in high demand, leading him to take on several shorttermActing Principal positions at high schools across Queensland, including Mabel Park State High School, Kedron State High School, Woodridge State High School, and Loganlea State High School. His ability to adapt quickly and lead effectively in different school environments speaks to his versatility and deep understanding of the educational landscape.

In each of these roles, Grant demonstrated his capacity to inspire staff and students alike, bringing a fresh perspective and a relentless focus on achieving the best outcomes for all. His time in these schools reinforced his belief in the importance of leadership that is both adaptable and grounded in a deep understanding of the community's needs.

Leading Beaudesert

State High School:ALegacy of Excellence

From 2021 to 2023, Grant served as the Principal of Beaudesert State High School, a regional community in the Scenic Rim of Brisbane. Under his leadership, the school implemented an annual plan focusing on well-being, data-informed decision-making, and improved academic outcomes. Grant was instrumental in developing a student-owned learning framework usingASOT, CLARITY, and HATTIE research.

One of his most significant achievements at Beaudesert was leading the school to become the first and only high school in Queensland to receive the Positive Behaviour Learning (PBL) ShowcaseAward. This accolade was a testament to his commitment to creating a supportive

school environment where every student could thrive.

Grant also secured funding for significant infrastructure upgrades, including a new administrative building, student toilets, a school fence, student-led uniforms, a dance floor, and a gym. These enhancements not only improved the physical environment of the school but also fostered a sense of pride and ownership among students and staff.

The Visionary Leader of Coombabah State

High School

Now in 2024, as the Principal of Coombabah State High School, Grant continues to lead with the same passion and vision that have defined his career. Coombabah, located in a northern suburb of the Gold Coast, is home to 1100 students and presents a new set of challenges and opportunities. Grant's vision for the school is clear: to create a highperformance culture where every student is empowered to reach their full potential.

Central to this vision is Grant's belief in a “students first” approach. He emphasises the importance of datadriven decision-making, stakeholder input, and building schools that enhance community value. His leadership is characterized by high expectations and a strong focus on relationships with staff, students, and the broader community.

The Inspiration Behind His Educational Leadership

Grant's journey into education was sparked by a unique challenge in his youth.As a high schooler, he took it upon himself to form and coach the school's rugby league team when the teachers wouldn't. Leading his team

to victory ignited a passion for teaching and mentoring that has driven his career ever since. "If one complains about a problem, one should also be prepared to suggest a solution," Grant often says, reflecting his proactive approach to leadership.

Growing up in a cramped twobedroom house with his brother and parents, Grant's world starkly contrasted with the dreams that danced in his head. He saw education as his golden ticket to a brighter future. These early experiences in a struggling community shaped his commitment to trauma-informed care

and high expectations for all students. Driven by a deep understanding of hardship, he cultivated a “relationships first” culture, ensuring that every student and educator is supported and empowered to succeed.

Shaping Leadership Through Experience and Mentorship

Unlike many professionals who shy away from complex challenges, Grant's leadership has been forged in the crucible of high-level trauma within diverse communities. This experience has profoundly shaped his approach, enhancing his skills and

tenacity. He credits influential mentors from Education Queensland—Alan Jones, Sue Dalton, and Michael Hornby—who guided him through these challenges, refining his approach to leadership and deepening his commitment to transformative education.

Over the years, Grant's leadership philosophy has evolved from being a good leader to becoming a forwardthinking strategist. Today, he describes himself as a strategic thinker, motivator, and influencer who builds teams and aligns organisations with shared visions and values. He

emphasises a relational leadership style characterized by high expectations and a strong focus on relationships with staff, students, and the community.

Primary Responsibilities as Principal at Coombabah State High School

As Principal of Coombabah State High School, Grant is driving positive change in the community by enhancing literacy and numeracy.A firm believer in the power of leadership, he understands that organisations rise or fall based on their leaders. Grant advocates for a leadership style that inspires belief, courage, curiosity, and initiative in others to achieve exceptional student outcomes. He further discusses his job responsibilities and underlines, "I will create an open and honest communication environment in our school, leading to a culture of learning for staff and students."

Balancing

Academic Excellence and Community Support

For Grant, balancing strong academic programs with a supportive school environment is essential. His goal as Principal is to help students reach their full potential by meeting their needs. With a wealth of experience working in diverse communities, Grant is proud to have been part of the team that won the Premier's ReconciliationAward in 2018. He is deeply grateful to Indigenous elder Uncle Laurie Naden for his guidance, which continues to shape his support for Indigenous students.

At Beaudesert State High School, Grant led the school to become the first and only high school in Queensland to receive the Positive Behaviour Learning (PBL) Showcase Award. PBL is a cornerstone of his

work, focusing on building solid relationships within the school community. For Grant, the most rewarding part of his job is making a positive impact on students' lives, something he strives to achieve every day at Coombabah State High School.

How Does Grant StayAhead of the Curve?

Like a skilled architect constantly reimagining the skyline, Grant is a farsighted educator who shapes the future of learning through innovative practices. He stays attuned to the latest trends and advancements in the education sector, ensuring his methods remain cutting-edge. By fostering strong connections with students, staff, and the community, and engaging in continuous professional development, Grant consistently elevates the learning experience.

Grant has a knack for bringing the school community together. Rather than relying solely on metrics, he believes that genuine interactions with staff, students, and community members provide the most accurate

assessment of his impact. "That is the real data when you see this day to day," he says.

Vision for Coombabah State High School

Grant's vision for Coombabah State High School is ambitious yet grounded in a deep understanding of what it takes to achieve success. He outlines a well-thought-out vision where long-term objectives transcend individual aspirations and become shared organisational imperatives. Developed through a rigorous sixmonth process, these goals serve as the North Star for the entire team.As a catalyst for action, Grant emphasises his role in fostering a collective drive to achieve these goals, underpinned by robust frameworks and operational excellence.

Central to this strategy is a steadfast commitment to a 'students-first attitude' which is the foundation for all decision-making. Grant is focused on creating a learning environment where every student feels valued and supported, and where academic

Grant Stephensen's journey from the rugby fields of Queensland to the Principal's office at Coombabah State High School is a testament to his extraordinary ability to inspire, lead, and transform. His story is one of resilience, innovation, and a relentless commitment to student success.As he continues to lead Coombabah State High School into the future, there is no doubt that Grant's influence will be felt not just within the school community, but across the broader landscape of education in Queensland and beyond.

excellence is balanced with a strong sense of community and well-being.

Work-Life Balance:AMantra for Success

Despite the demands of his role, Grant maintains a healthy work-life balance, something he considers crucial for sustained success. He believes in setting clear boundaries between work and personal life, ensuring he has time for relaxation and rejuvenation. For Grant, this “third space” is essential for maintaining his energy and focus.

Grant's commitment to work-life balance extends to his belief in the importance of saying no to work commitments when family time is crucial. He delegates responsibilities when necessary, allowing him to

His visionary approach, combined with a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in education, positions him as a leader to watch in the years to come. With a focus on collaboration, innovation, and a steadfast commitment to putting students first, Grant Stephensen is not just shaping the future of Coombabah State High School; he is helping to shape the future of education itself.

maintain a fulfilling personal life alongside his professional pursuits. His long-standing involvement in university rugby league, taking on various roles over two decades, demonstrates his commitment to a balanced life.

APerspective on the Future of Education

As an experienced industry leader, Grant acknowledges the rapidly evolving nature of education, emphasizing the unpredictability of its future. Rather than focusing on forecasting specific outcomes, he prioritizes collaboration among schools to effectively address the evolving needs of students in an uncertain world. Grant envisions Coombabah State High School as an integral part of this collaborative

network, contributing to the shared goal of preparing students for an unknown future.

“Coombabah State High School's role in shaping the future is being collegial," he explains. "Taking risks and innovating with an open-door policy.” Grant stresses the importance of celebrating collective achievements, nurturing peer support, and seeking external assistance when challenges arise.

Founder and Group CEO | Sock Consulting Group

Alexandra Sock

A Global Leadership And Executive Coach Passionate And dedicated To Increasing Emotional Intelligence In The Consulting Industry

When it comes to success in any area of your life, continuous improvement is part of the job. While intentions are great, it's the actions you take that decide your outcomes. George Sheehan said: Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.

Alexandra Sock, Founder and Group CEO of Sock Consulting Group; believes that we need to be content and happy with our life no matter where we are on the path to success.Alexandra has more than 25 years of global leadership and executive coaching.

Taking a leap of faith

“I never thought of founding my own company,” exclaims . She Alexandra started her career as a recruiter within Jenewein&Partner in Vienna. There she met one of her biggest mentors,

Jean Francois Jenewein. He very soon sawAlexandra's dedication to solving difficult situations and her ability to find solutions or at least options for stuck states and challenging situations and he let her handle all kinds of difficult search projects. H also very e soon gave her the feedback that she is at best her, if she had all the freedom to do what she thinks is the best solution and to be led with along leash. Jean offeredAlexandra exactly this kind of leadership. With him, she outgrew herself and when he decided to put his company under the umbrella ofAmrop Hever and only offered recruiting services anymore, he recommended her to found her own company and throw herself onto the market of consulting and coaching; which she did. With her clients from the search projects, Alexandra had a great start inher own company.

Challenges are an excellent opportunity for growth

Alexandra founded her company in 1999, at the age of 26. Being very young when she started out as a consultant for CEOs and senior leaders, she faced a lot of challenges. In the beginning, nobody inAustria took her seriously and in every meeting and interaction, she was tested way more than her older male colleagues. She took every challenge - which for her very often were opportunities that called out to her.

She strongly believes that challenges are opportunities to plunge into. She states that her kind of success tip would be: to believe in yourself, give every situation your best shot, and go all in and go to the end. We need to trust and understand that everybody has the best of intentions at their heart and everybody wants to be successful at the end of the day. The only thing

that makes interactions and situations difficult is that very often we do not see the good intentions of others or we do not always fully trust that others show their full potential. “I am a firm believer in the capabilities of others and if you trust them and create a safe and growing environment, nothing can go astray,” she says.

RecognitionAlexandra received as a leader

Alexandra claims her career started in a great environment. She had very encouraging parents, very able and dedicated teachers, great friends, and great bosses all through her corporate life. She always received valuable

critical feedback and therefore could always become more and more selfaware and more self-reflection. “I have been gifted with a lot of opportunities to get to know the motives and intentions of others and therefore adapt my behavior accordingly,” she says.

She has been rewarded with a lot of interesting and challenging projects in all the jobs she held before founding her own company. Being a project manager in the European Union, Alexandra was rewarded with projects that were only given to senior staff members before. Within Unilever, she was rewarded with a lot of international projects which were

not allowed before. Within Jenewein and Partners, she was rewarded with new customer projects and with a fast track record in career development, and more and more senior titles which also meant more and more impactful project ownerships.

“The best recognition in my daily business as a leader is long-lasting partnerships, customers that stay with us for various topics and loyal team members that have been with us for as long as we exist and still are highly motivated to give their best every day,” she states.

Responsibilities as CEO at Sock Consulting

Internally, as the CEO of the sock consulting group,Alexandra takes care of the strategy and the growth of the company. She is also responsible for the development of her teams. She takes a lot of time for 1:1 and feedback sessions and also discusses a lot about how to make the life of my team members better, easier, and more impactful for their customers. Alexandra has also created new programs and new designs for workshops together with her colleagues and her team members.

Externally, she is coaching CEOs and senior leaders all over the world and works with great leadership teams to have the biggest impact on their teams in their respective environments.Alexandra describes herself as a 'dedicated multiplier' who is 300% focused on energy to make her environment successful.

Plans for the future of Sock Consulting

Their plan now is to make emotional intelligence an everyday habit for leaders and to offer practical little tools to integrate emotions into the still very rational world of leaders.At the same time, they are growing their business in growing new target groups – they are now aiming to work for youngsters entering the professional world for the first time and doing vision quests and tiny habits training to help them find their place in their environments and grow their impact from the first day onwards.

Sock Consulting has a very good partnershipthe US, in Europe, Singapore, Levante, and EMEA. They are now expanding their business to

LATAM and JAPAC. They have started online toolboxes on emotional intelligence and while now enlarging this product to create unconscious bias online toolboxes and inclusive leadership toolboxes - very concise enugget training for everyday learning with immediate practical impact.

Balance in personal and professional life

“How to maintain balance and stay motivated is a very easy question for me as I believe I only have one life and every aspect of your life comes together like a puzzle,” says Alexandra. She started out alone, then grew her business by working with a great network of partners, then hired an accountant, then CFO, then an IT manager, and a graphics – designer then she had her first child, her daughter Vivienne, and after 2 years she had her. She states son Raffael that all of a sudden she felt like she had a family empire – with her parents and her parents-in-law traveling with her and taking care of the children as she worked in the most beautiful places all over the world.

Alexandra believes that we are all at our best when we can create a balance in all our areas of lifeAnd if you love what you do, you do not need to have clear private life vs. business life. But if you like the clean cuts, they have this in their company. Every team member decided that for themselves. They have transparent deadlines and everybody knows what needs to be done till when and she does not care when her team members carry out their responsibilities. “I fully trust them that they dedicate all their potential and capabilities to making

our clients happy and satisfied and help them grow and develop,” she says.

“I see myself as a – the multiplier more I create a frame where everybody can grow the better the results will be I have been working with part-time mums for the past 10 years and it worked out great for our clients, for me as a CEO, and for them and their families,” explains Alexandra. One of her assistants is based in India and this worked fine as she starts her working day at 2 pm their time and the handover is very smooth and her dedication to the business is as high as if she would be sitting in the office with them. Being understandable and giving freedom to organize private and business life as flexibly and openly as possible they have been super successful even before the pandemic.

Alexandra's biggest tip for motivation she thinks is - to walk the talk and be motivated yourself and be passionate and love what you do. She is deeply convinced she has the best job in the World. “Being a role model is easy for me and this energy multiplies with my team and with our customers,” she exclaims.

Her message to aspiring business leaders: Be 100% present in the here and now and stay focused on creating an impact in every interaction. Frequently ask yourself - How can I make the best out of this situation? How can I act as a multiplier or leverage the environment?

Yılmaz Bozan

An Astute Marketer and Skilled Business Leader

Yılmaz Bozan, CEO and Founder of revolutionDM, is an industrial engineer with over 20 years of experience in the internet industry. He founded the first online home furniture sales business in Turkey, and went on to operate and consult in a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, vacations, airlines, textiles, shoes, and fast moving consumer goods.

Yılmaz Bozan's name appears in numerous ecommerce site start-ups, and his role is to introduce businesses to e-commerce and build performance-oriented digital marketing strategies. He's worked on conversion-boosting techniques including neuro marketing and growth hacking, and he now consults businesses on these topics.

Yılmaz has worked with both small and large businesses. He worked long hours on coding and graphic design in addition to being a white collar worker. Before revolutionDM, he spent

his time honing other hard skills that are the foundations of digital marketing. He explains, "These have motivated me to start this business, and I am pleased to see that I have put in the effort to develop these skills."

Taking First Steps as an Entrepreneur

Yılmaz had the chance to collaborate with a variety of firms while working as the digital marketing director for a big consumer electronics retailer in Turkey. He has recently noticed marketing companies failing to comprehend their clients' difficulties and disadvantages. Being with entrepreneurs in Dublin in 2014 inspired him to start a firm that fills that gap and understands the demands of companies as well as the complexities of this fast-paced expanding business in Turkey, while also delivering benchmark service in its own manner.

In 2015, Yılmaz founded the Internet Advertising Services and Consulting company called "revolutionDM".At the same time, he was arranging "Digital Marketing and E-commerce" training and certificate programmes at several institutions, as well as writing articles for well-known publications and websites.

revolutionDM

revolutionDM is a digital marketing firm that places a strong emphasis on results. The firm sets itself apart from the competition by the level of service it delivers and the strategy it takes. Yılmaz says, "Our approach is being one with our clients as if we are working together at their premises. We like to act as their colleagues, in other words, their Director of Digital Marketing. Not like an agency, but an employee who has organic bounds going through challenges side by side. That's why we are not affected by the competition due to our approach and our business model."

RevolutionDM's main service categories are as follows:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

•SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

•SMM (Social Media Marketing)

•Conversion Optimization

•Growth Hacking

•Neuro Marketing

•Mobile Marketing

•UX/UI Desing / Optimizastion

•E-Commerce Consulting

The Global Challenge and Team RevolutionDM

The last two years during the epidemic were very difficult for the revolutionDM teams, since they are currently dealing with it. revolutionDM was able to survive this difficult phase because of the team's excellent relationships with the company's clients. In exchange, the firm has worked extremely hard to maintain the best level of service, despite the fact that the economics of the pandemic period are still shifting and tough. The team's vision is to go global and have partners as well as clients on all continents, while keeping the unique service level at its highest.

CEO of revolutionDM

Yılmaz's role in the company is like a mentor and big brother. Since the beginning, revolutionDM has set the company's organisational structure without hierarchy, in which communication among the teams and clients is seamless and frictionless. He describes it thusly, "We treat our clients' issues as our own problems, just as our colleagues' issues. There is no distinction between overseeing their digital communication processes of clients, taking action before they cause any major damage and our colleagues' problems."

Yılmaz goes on to say that the company's executives' attitude and pleasant corporate culture keep employees engaged, and that no matter what occurs, a solution will always be found. This approach, according to Yılmaz, characterises revlutionDM's ideals, which is why individuals in this sector's ecosystem chose revlutionDM. Yılmaz says, "I used to work in a pharmacy, so I even take care of my colleagues' health problems and sometimes I give medical treatment to my colleagues when necessary."

Following the Routine

Yılmaz says, "I love what I am doing here." He works long hours, even after midnight on weekdays, but his Sundays are always free. Over the years, he has learned how to manage his time. He states, "My hairdresser appointment is set weeks before. I plan my days, weeks and even months in advance so that I can squeeze personal time and responsibilities in between. That helps a lot to balance your work and life. To me, if you manage your time well, you manage what you want to achieve.”

Hard work always Pays Off

In the previous five years, revolutionDM has added new clients in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, with the number of clients in Europe increasing dramatically last year. WOM was the company's marketing approach, which meant that existing customers recommended it to new ones. The firm does not have a landing page, but it does have personal social media profiles, which is interesting.Another intriguing aspect is that it has clients who do not speak the same language. Yılmaz says, "We manage digital marketing processes for a Polish client through translation for the last 8 months and it's still working perfectly. We are confident in our knowledge and experience. "

Yılmaz has coded more than 400 websites, managed over a billion traffic and set up countless ecommerce start-ups with the help of tonnes of coffee and sleepless nights over the years. He says, "Anyone who would like to capitalise our knowledge and experience for their venture and company is always welcome at revolutionDM."

View on Success

In 2009, Yılmaz started to give courses about digital marketing.After 10 years, his students become professionals working for big enterprises. He feels very proud when he meets them again. He considers the biggest achievement for him to be the people whose lives he has contributed to. He says, "It's amazing to see the

power of spreading knowledge and information and how it impacts people's professional lives."

If Yılmaz had to choose three qualities that helped him succeed in business, he would say imagination, persistence and values. He continues to state that everything begins with a dream and that when one has a dream, one must strive and fail in order to keep the dream alive. He mentions that it takes every possible way and tries various strategies to make that dream come true. That also requires discipline and persistence. He says, "Having values and respect towards your surroundings and people that you work with, success becomes inevitable."

Journey in Upholding Integrity Katherine Delikoura

In the intricate landscape of corporate governance, the role of compliance officers stands as a cornerstone of integrity. Delving into the insights of one such luminary, Katherine Delikoura, Chief Compliance Officer at the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), reveals a journey marked by dedication, resilience, and unwavering commitment to high ethical standards. Let's explore her odyssey, insights, and aspirations in the realm of compliance.

Exploring the Path to Compliance Leadership

Katherine's journey to assuming the role of Chief Compliance Officer unfolds over a span of more than twenty years, characterized by a profound understanding of the intricacies of the multilateral development banking and a fervent dedication to mitigating risks.

Reflecting on her formative years, she recalls the dynamic environment of the nineties and early 2000s, a period marked by significant shifts in the global banking landscape, including towards more stringent recommendations on supervisory oversight, capital adequacy and market discipline to strengthen the banking system under BaselAccords. "My journey commenced during a pivotal phase in banking history," Katherine reminisces. "The [the advent of Basel II in 2004] brought to light the complexities and vulnerabilities inherent in banking practices, igniting my curiosity and driving my focus towards the realms of risk management and compliance." This pivotal moment not only shaped her professional trajectory but also laid the groundwork for her unwavering drive to upholding integrity and regulatory standards within the financial sector.

Unique Compliance Challenges at CEB

Leading the compliance efforts at CEB, which is Europe's oldest multilateral development bank, Katherine confronts the ever-shifting geopolitical terrain, characterized by its intricacies and uncertainties. "Operating in regions grappling with issues like money laundering and corruption underscores the critical nature of our compliance work," she elaborates. The presence of high-risk areas necessitates a proactive approach to due diligence, prompting an ongoing refinement of policies and practices to ensure strict adherence to compliance standards. This adaptive approach enables CEB to navigate the complex challenges inherent in its operational landscape more effectively, while upholding its commitment to integrity and ethical practices.

Chief Compliance Officer | Council of Europe Development Bank

SUCCESSJOURNEYSOF BUSINESSLEADERS