Transform For Value Founder Shares Life And Work Experiences – Exclusive Interview With Suzie Lewis

Founder and Managing Director of Transform for Value, Suzie is a global business leader and executive coach with extensive experience in driving international transformation projects, and in preparing business leaders and employees for change. For individuals and organisations to flourish, it's critical that people are comfortable with and embrace the speed of an increasingly digital and connected world. Suzie’s quest is to work on the human dimension of digital transformation, and help organisations and leaders understand the human side of business, to create more inclusive leadership and more collaborative cultures. She advises and coaches organisations and leaders on the human dimension of transformation.

Suzie Lewis, Transform for Value

Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.

I am a dynamic and fun-loving person and like to think I bring these qualities to both my work and my private life! I am British by birth but have lived in France for many years. I still have a strong connection to my family and home nation, but feel very at home in my adopted country, which is also where my son was born. I have experienced first-hand the advantages – and challenges! – of constantly straddling two different cultures and languages.

I work hard, but I also play hard and pay great attention to trying to achieve that elusive work-life balance. I offset my long hours in front of a screen with lots of physical exercise and movement, such as cycling, running and Pilates, and am thoroughly enjoying once again being able to travel and meet clients, colleagues, friends and family in person, something that I have missed terribly, so much do I value human interaction and connection.

I also love reading, cooking food from all over the world, and am extremely sociable: I have a wide circle of friends with whom I enjoy eating, drinking, travelling, cultural events and talking – about anything and everything!

I am a life-long enthusiastic cellist and long-standing member of an amateur orchestra. I love playing music in this collective context and being part of such a special group.

I worked for 20 years in the aeronautical industry with major clients in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States and am now an executive coach and business leader, advising and supporting senior leaders and organisations to nurture the human dimension of transformation. Diversity & Inclusion is an integral part of everything I do, and indeed the basis of my quest to constantly bridge the gap between digital and human and create more inclusive and collaborative cultures in organisations to drive sustainable transformation.

I held key positions in the fields of culture change and digital transformation and led flagship projects and teams large and small. During this time, my roles encompassed leadership; coaching; digital innovation; strategy, governance and deployment; HR, recruitment and assessment; talent management; lean and Agile methodologies; change management and operational deployment. My last corporate role was as Digital Transformation Leader for a global aeronautical company where I was responsible for developing and scaling the human-centred strategy for digital transformation across the organisation and deploying this in keeping with the agile culture change objectives.

I founded my business, Transform for Value, and my podcast series, Let’s Talk Transformation, to carry on operationalising and sharing this learning and continue this work with as much impact as possible.

I hold a BA in French and Business Studies from a UK university and an MA in French Literature from a French university as well as various professional qualifications from the fields of systemic coaching, coaching, Agile and Design thinking.

What is your business name and how do you help your clients? What kind of audience do you target your business towards?

After much consideration, I named my business Transform for Value. I am passionate about helping people to connect, unlock their potential and rediscover their sense of joy, both at work and at home. I do this work as a coach, both for individuals and groups, but also run programmes for organisations wanting to create powerful communities and sustainable change. To this end, I created my Human Systems Practitioner (HSP) ProgrammeTM, to shed light on how human systems work in an organisation. It is designed to be accessible and easy to operationalise to enable people to create change in their environment and bring their best selves to work.

Building and leading more agile ecosystems is part of everybody’s ongoing challenge and the human element of the workplace has never been more important as we move into this more hybrid and platform-based way of working. We must look at how to enact systemic change throughout the different levels whilst allowing people to thrive in a safe place. We need to consciously shift the systems of today into healthy systems for tomorrow.

I am a frequent guest, keynote speaker and lecturer both for companies and business schools and also host the Let’s Talk Transformation podcasts, which cover a variety of topics and attract global leaders in their field to explore the human and digital sides of transformation, including the future of work, platform-based business models, tech for good and new leadership trends.

I am extremely value- and purpose-driven and also offer training in DE&I and for women in leadership.

What are your current goals for your business?

I am currently scaling my HSP Programme and training more people to deliver it in their relevant environments, to continue to develop and build powerful communities of change. My quest is to democratise access to the skill set needed for leading systemic change based on human collaboration, inclusion and collective wisdom, which can create environments where people and businesses can adapt and thrive together.

I want to continue to see tangible results and proven benefits from my programmes and workshops and to reach, impact and support as many people as possible. What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?

One of the things I love about what I do is that I am always learning myself, and from other people. I would like to carry on learning and being surprised by what I can learn from every situation. I have various larger goals for myself and my business. I would like my business to impact as many people as possible through creating meaningful connections and relationships; I would like to help democratise access to ‘life’ skills, including ‘softer’ relational skills, for example; and I want to create more inclusive and equitable systems for people to thrive. Personally, I would like to have as much impact as I can in creating a more equitable and regenerative society and be fulfilled through the deep and meaningful relationships I create and live through my values no matter what. I would like to help create, both myself and via my business, a legacy of more human-centred systems.

Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?

There are several people who inspire me to be the best that I can be. My family are at the heart of this, and I continue to be grateful and privileged that they are part of my life and such staunch supporters of who I am.

I am also inspired by people who remain humble and do great things in this world because they are serving a collective good.

What is your work inspired by?

I am passionate about fairness and respect and the potential that lies within people that we don’t necessarily see straight away. I am also passionate about not putting people in boxes. I feel inspired by creating something that will last by building sustainable ecosystems and creating sustainable change, driving value through people, first and foremost, but also through data and processes. I also greatly value the ability to serve and be served.

If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?

I would change the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model that often goes with the coaching and consulting industry. I would look at understanding a shift towards a co-creative and exploratory approach that looks to in-house skills in organisations and people, where we are having the necessary conversations to enact systemic change. I would take a step back from perpetuating a dependency on “bringing solutions” to a problem that we don’t properly live or understand. I envisage a model that allows people to access both their own inner wisdom as well as that of the system, and equipping both to work together to create a model that works for them. This sounds naïve but is wholly possible, particularly as organisational design and leadership paradigms shift towards a more interdependent and fluid model (whether we like it or not).

Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.

A pivotal moment in my life was when I was on the top of a mountain, thinking (as you do!), and realised that I had in fact carved out a career that I was passionate about almost unintentionally, and that there was a bigger step for me to take on this path. This led to me changing my environment, stepping out of the corporate career I was in then and setting up my own business. This was a huge milestone for me both on a personal level but also in terms of the opportunity it gave me to scale the impact I wanted to have, scale the sharing of my learning, multiply the connections I could make and continue to make across the globe, and constantly increase the opportunities to build capacity for the future (both individually and collectively).

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

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