Never Walk Alone
Individual Executive Development
Top executive coaching and mentoring for present, former, and future women CEOs.
Why Should You Never Walk Alone?
Executive Coaching and Mentoring for Women CEOs
The loneliest place is at the top. All those challenges you, the CEO, face daily – you can't always take them home, and you can't always discuss them openly with your executive team and company representatives. So, who is left to help you bear the weight of the crown? Your executive mentor and coach, aka... moi 😊.
Cristina has been my executive coach during one of the most pivotal periods of my career, particularly while navigating the complex challenges of my role as Managing Director at Deutsche Leasing. Her skills and expertise are absolutely indisputable. During moments of uncertainty, Cristina provided me with the space to process my thoughts and feelings, while also challenging me through insightful and reflective questions. This helped me to break free from long-established patterns of thinking.
I first connected with Cristina through her book, VY JAKO ZNACKA (You, the Brand) which explores personal branding in relation to career growth. Impressed by the insights in her book, I joined her Mentoring Services for Women Leaders: NEVER WALK ALONE program. Her coaching sessions within this program, combined with the knowledge from her book, have provided me with practical strategies and profound understanding to advance my professional journey.
What sets Cristina apart is her remarkable insights and extensive experience in coaching and working with CEOs. Often referred to as a “CEO Whisperer”, her understanding of the unique pressures and responsibilities faced by top executives is unparalleled. I am also part of her THE CEO Elevation Circle initiative which is “on a mission to triple the number of women CEOs in Europe by 2030”. In this group, we exchange ideas, discuss problems, and collaborate with other CEOs and C-suite executives. This platform has been invaluable in broadening my perspective and enhancing my leadership skills. The level of trust Cristina fostered during our sessions was instrumental in enabling me to achieve significant progress. Her empathetic yet challenging approach has been transformative, not only for my professional journey but also for my personal growth. I truly appreciate having had the opportunity to work with her.
For those seeking a seasoned, compassionate, empathetic, and highly skilled executive coach, Cristina is an outstanding choice. I fully endorse her as a transformative coach. Her proficiency has inspired me to become an agent of change in my own journey. And all this, with full enjoyment and loads of fun! 😊
This is how I serve:
Present CEOs
You want to succeed, make a difference in your organization and beyond, and build a lasting legacy. I am here for you.
Former CEOs
You wish to retain your influence after your official CEO mandate ends and continue driving positive change in our world even after your retirement. I am here for you.
Future CEOs
You aim to hit the ground running and start fast, with grace, power, and impact from the moment you become the next CEO. I am here for you.
How Does Never Walk Alone Work?
The Process
This versatile executive coaching and mentoring program, Never Walk Alone, has been designed to help you address the specific challenges you face today. I invite you to join me in a thorough process aimed to make sure you achieve maximum results, impact, and bang for your buck.
Step 0 – Let's talk
Let's take 30 minutes to get to know each other. Free of charge, no strings attached. During this time we will talk, bond, and I will be happy to listen to your greatest professional and personal challenges you are facing right now. Based on this conversation we both can make a decision whether to continue in our conversation or not.
Step 1 – Diagnosis and Goal Setting
When we decide to work together, we will dive into your program with a 30-minute diagnosis and goal setting. We will specify your objectives and the desired outcomes you want to achieve by the end of our program. Based on this diagnosis we identify the urgency of your topics and we select the topic for your first session.
Step 2 – Delivery
In this phase we deep dive into your challenges. To do this I will use my entire professional development toolbox: executive coaching and self-reflection to clarify your path, executive mentoring to leverage your real-life experience and know-how, training simulations to prepare you for what's coming your way, and techniques such as visualization and somatic exercises. Sessions can be recorded. Do expect self-reflective exercises and extensive asynchronous support via WhatsApp and email between our one-on-one sessions.
Step 3 – Feedback and Follow-Up
As we wrap up our development program, we'll assess your current position, progress, and challenges still lurking on your path. I welcome your feedback and a rich discussion on our collaboration and ways to improve it going forward. As you grow, so too will your horizon expand - and your challenges. This is why most of my clients decide to continue our partnership through a different executive mentoring package designed to help them tackle new challenges arising from their success.
Should You Define Your Challenges Alone?
COMPLEX 360°ASSESSMENT
Sometimes it can be helpful to reflect and work on the challenges you know you have without further interventions. On the other hand, when you are about to enter a complex stakeholder environment with multiple perspectives and demands, it can be helpful to get them on board with your development. This is why I offer you two 360° assessment formulas aimed to help you make sure that you are focusing on the right challenges and you progress in a direction that is aligned with your stakeholders' expectations from you.
360° ASSESSMENT ONLINE SURVEY FORMULA
In this formula you identify up to 12 key stakeholders who should answer a compact set of questions related to your leadership profile, strengths, weaknesses, and development needs. Stakeholders receive a link to a survey form and they are invited to fill it in usually within 14 days. Afterwards we collect the data and we allow the results to inform our choices of challenges to tackle together during your development program.
Price: 1,000 EUR (VAT not included)
360° ASSESSMENT DIRECT INTERVIEW FORMULA
In this formula we identify up to 12 key stakeholders whom we will interview personally. All stakeholders will receive a scripted set of questions pertaining to your leadership profile, strengths, weaknesses, and development needs. Stakeholder live virtual interviews may take up to 20 minutes per individual. Afterwards we transcribe the interviews, collect the data, and we allow this thorough and robust information to fuel our choice of challenges to tackle together during your development program.
Price: 3,000 EUR (VAT not included)
The Success Formula
Why Three Options of Never Walk Alone?
I am here to serve you with the precise type of intensity and urgency you require. Based on my experience serving over 200 individual clients, I can say with conviction that these three formulas usually meet clients' needs best, which is why I recommend you explore them in depth.
Under Pressure
3SESSIONS
This flexible 4-hour formula is best for you when you're under tons of stress: preparing for a major presentation or keynote, bracing for a tough shareholder meeting, facing a job promotion, or a tough media interview; or simply wanting to simulate an upcoming communication scenario that makes you cringe. We can collaborate in a single 4-hour workshop with brief breaks, or divide the time into two 2-hour sessions, or three sessions of 90 and 60 minutes, respectively.
Price: 3,000 EUR (VAT not included)
Solution
6SESSIONS
This formula is ideal if your challenge is more robust and time-consuming than the Under Pressure situation. For example, you may want to assess the dynamics in your executive team or skyrocket your storytelling / media interview skills. We can agree on six sessions of 7 hours (two 90-minute sessions and four 60-minute sessions), with enough time in between for self-reflection, practice, training, and action to achieve your desired results.
Price: 5,000 EUR (VAT not included)
Transformation
12SESSIONS
This option is life-changing — and that's not just a phrase. This session package is ideal for facing major career or life challenges: preparing for your next CEO role in a context with major complexity, challenges, and impact, preparing to exit the corporate sphere to launch your own business, or planning your departure from the CEO role while mapping how to maintain your influence and impact even after your retirement. The 12-session (13-hour) package is spread over six months to allow for a maximum of self-reflection and action room for your growth.
Price: 8,000 EUR (VAT not included)
Crisis Intervention: Short & Sharp
Picture it: your boss just told you that your department will be closed. You grasp for air. You don’t know how to respond. This is exactly when my SHORT & SHARP sessions come in handy. When life pulls to rug from under your feet and you need to avoid saying or doing something you may later regret, I am here for you.
Short & Sharp: Quick Compass
30Minutes
This pinch-like intervention can literally save your reputation. Our session is aimed to help you compose yourself, regain critical distance, and make a sound decision fast. For example: you need to bounce back quickly after an upsetting internal announcement and state your position; a journalist is waiting for your response; a co-worker did something unacceptable and you want to give them feedback without biting their head off etc. Quick Compass is ideal when you are in a rush AND you want to preserve your cool head and respond wisely in a way you won’t later regret.
Price: 400 EUR (VAT not included)
Book your Short & Sharp session hereShort & Sharp: Strategic Orientation
60Minutes
Imagine this intervention as taking a clarity pill. You need to cut through the fog, identify your next steps, and make sure you’re on the right path. This intervention is ideal for my former clients who want to discuss a certain topic without being enrolled in a fully-fledged coaching and mentoring program, or for future clients who want to sample the quality of my work before committing to a longer development program. Strategic Orientation helps you ground yourself, regain critical distance, and clarify your next steps in the direction of your desired objective.
Price: 700 EUR (VAT not included)
Book your Short & Sharp session here
With Whom Will You Work?
Your Mentor and Coach
I will work with you personally. Never Walk Alone is a work of love and a carrier of my own purpose and positive impact on the world. This is why I would be honored to get to know you and for us to address your challenges together.
If you want to learn more about me, my qualifications, and my story, please feel free to visit my My Story page.
Your Success is My Success
TESTIMONIALS
I feel incredibly privileged to be able to work with some of the smartest, most heartfelt and impactful leaders and CEOs on this planet. Feel free to check my clients’ reflections on our work together.
If you are looking for a mentor/coach to guide you through the journey of finding your true vision and navigate smartly in this complex world, Cristina is definitely the right choice. Cristina is a natural coach and facilitator. She is patient, intuitive, and wise beyond her years. And she has a masterful knack for knowing when to invoke these various skills to bring out a clarity of purpose and desire that is often hard to pinpoint on your own. She has a way of repackaging your own, sometimes confusing, thoughts in a way that adds meaningful direction. I’m very grateful to have worked with her during a challenging period professionally throughout 2019 and the result is remarkable. Thank you Cristina for joining me into my “big leap”!
Cristina has provided me with indispensable help and advice in preparing for high-profile public appearances, important stakeholder meetings, interviews, and panel sessions. Her training in storytelling has deeply impacted my style of delivery on the stage; she has helped me build rapport with various audiences. I have received practical insights on speech drafts, PowerPoint presentations, content and style, real-life dilemmas etc. When you work with Cristina you get full focus and utmost attention, impartial advice and objective feedback, inspiring stories and handy examples, all served with a very positive, energizing and charming vibe. All-in-all both a very invigorating and practically useful experience. Cristina is very emotionally intelligent and I try hard to keep up and to learn from her at the same time 🙂 If anything, I believe she could charge more, her services are totally worth it. Working with Cristina is a great experience, definitely time and money well spent.
Cristina has the talent to tune in to a specific group or individual and to design a program according to very specific needs. She creates relationships based on trust that are a good basis for the development of individuals or groups. Her language skills and multicultural experience are also an added value. Cooperation with Cristina is very rewarding and at the same time very pleasant. Cristina will not push anyone to achieve their goal; everyone must find the will to develop within themselves. Yet she will gently accompany and support you in this whole process.
Cristina is a professional business consultant who brings measurable results to our company growth. The relationship of our team with Cristina is more than just a supplier -> customer relationship, it’s about trust, support, empathy and more important, an incredible injection of a positive energy from Cristina to our leadership ambitions and at the same moment, it’s about very tough feedback to our macho ego. One can steal horses with Cristina!
My Services Will Yield ROI for You for Years to Come
HOW CAN YOU CALCULATE THE ROI OF YOUR INVESTMENT IN MY INDIVIDUAL COACHING AND MENTORING SERVICES?
Here are a couple of ways you can use to measure the ROI of my individual coaching and mentoring services NEVER WALK ALONE:
The difference between your current salary and the salary you will receive in your new CEO / senior leadership role. Multiply that by 36 – 36 is the minimum length of a CEO mandate, unless the CEO appointment was a mistake – or by 50, the average length of a regular CEO mandate. Anything on top of that is a bonus – my treat 😊
Imagine that you give an interview for Forbes. Your exposure will bring you a minimum of 6 pages for free. If you were to pay for advertising on 6 pages, you would pay a minimum of 10 000 EUR per page (it can be more function of the maturity of your market). By giving one good interview you save your company a minimum of 60 000 EUR. The instant ROI in my services: 7.5.
Calculate the value of your reputation and personal brand after your current CEO mandate. How will your market value increase and how will your compensation negotiation levers manifest when you apply for your next CEO role?
Calculate the value of your good name and access to premium / exclusive services that your visibility offers yourself, your children, family members, and other people you care about.
Calculate the positive impact of writing a book on your local, regional, and global reputation. How will your market value, negotiation power, and career and life management opportunities expand once you become a reputable published author?
And so on and so forth. If the ROI calculation is a topic of your interest, please book a call and let’s calculate it together.
Don't Walk Alone
Book a simple and quick 30-minute call with me personally to get to know each other and to assess the magnitude of your challenges as a CEO. I promise to invite you to work together only if I truly believe we can be a great fit; our time is precious for both of us, and I wish the best for you, myself, your company, and my own business. The 30-minute call is a free, no-strings-attached virtual conversation. You literally have nothing to lose – and everything to gain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some of the questions I receive regularly from potential clients. Take a look, clarify your next steps, and let’s talk.
Is Never Walk Alone for CEOs only?
No. Never Walk Alone is an executive coaching and mentoring program for present, former, and future CEOs. This means that if you’re on track to become the next CEO, you could derive tremendous benefits from working with me on the strategy for your next career step. Similarly, if you have already exited the CEO role and are looking for your next impactful mission, we can work together. The simplest way to check whether this program is for you is to book a direct call with me, and we will take it from there.
Is Never Walk Alone for women CEOs only?
No. Never Walk Alone is an executive coaching and mentoring program dedicated to any top-level executive – present, former, and future CEO – who wants to grow in their career and leadership. My preference to work with women leaders directly serves the mission of my company, Vornica® – to triple the number of women CEOs in Europe by 2030. However, male leaders are wonderful clients, and they are more than welcome to use Never Walk Alone to amplify their leadership and impact. I rejoice and grow in the process of working together with inspiring male leaders.
Who pays for Never Walk Alone, me or my company?
It depends on the phase in your career and life. Clients who are about to be promoted as CEOs or who are already CEOs usually get their bill settled by their company. On the other hand, clients who eye an exit from the corporate environment to launch their own businesses or who are not employed by a company anymore choose to settle their bills themselves.
Is the price of Never Walk Alone the same if paid from one’s own pocket or by a company?
Yes. The value provided to the end customer through this service is the same. The only difference is that, depending on your location in the world and the various VAT regimes applicable in our countries, we might be able to apply a VAT exemption that will shave off 21% of VAT from your final bill in case you are a physical person covering your costs by yourself.
Is the price of Never Walk Alone the same when applied to clients from Western Europe and North America, and to clients from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world?
Yes. The value provided to the end customer through this service is the same. The only difference – same as above – is that, depending on your location and the various VAT regimes applicable in our countries, we might be able to apply a VAT exemption that will shave off 21% of VAT from your final bill.
How much time do I have to use my sessions?
It depends on the formula you purchased. In general, I recommend using Under Pressure in less than a month, Solution in less than three months, and Transformation in less than six months.
Will our sessions be recorded?
Yes, should you choose so. One of the greatest advantages of working together online is that we can preserve everything through session recording. Thus, during the session, we can focus on each other and on the challenge at hand, and less on note-taking.
How do you protect my data privacy?
Your psychological and data safety are my massive concerns. Protecting your psychological safety is one of the reasons I chose not to become a digital nomad even though I work remotely – because I want to offer you my full attention from a private space with no interruptions, noise, and background distractions. In terms of data safety, all your data is stored in the cloud in a folder accessible only to you and me, and on my private server for backup. Your data is deleted as soon as our program together has ended, and I have your permission to clean up our servers.
Do you only work online, or can we have our sessions in-person as well?
99.99% of my work is done online. This is how I get to serve clients from all over the world and protect my time and boundaries without burning out. However, if I happen to be in your home city and we both decide it could be nice to run a session in-person, I will be happy to oblige. Yet, expect this to be the rare exception rather than the usual way of working together.