IAM1535 – Coach Helps Organizations in Business Transformation and Strategic Innovation

Albana is a senior business manager and change leader, executive and business coach, author, speaker, and trainer, specializing in business transformation, strategic business innovation, and organizational development. Albana coaches and advises business leaders worldwide on Generative Leadership and Business Innovation – supporting them to re-imagine the future see beyond what’s obvious, and develop visionary thinking of infinite possibilities, shifting to a new state of mind and energy.

She has over 20 years of experience in architecting and delivering business transformation for international businesses, European Institutions, and Agencies. Albana has served on various business functions, like IT /BPM & Automation, Managed Security Services, HR/ Organisation Development, Supply Chain Management, Business Development, and New Product Development. She believes that business leaders hold the potential to change the game of their business and the story of their lives– she has made it her mission to support them to thrive in shaping the future.

• CEO Story: Albana’s passion in her entire career is for narrative growth questioning the status quo and looking for better alternatives. Helping clients thrive disruptions in creating prosperity with over 25 years of experience in developing business transformation leaders and achieving their next level of success. At one point, having the boundaries of an employed role, she realized it was time for her to move on and be her own CEO. Having a solid and viable business plan for business leaders. She has a strong belief in equipping these leaders to stay on top of the game not just in the capacity for technical skills but also in developing a capacity for mindset shift for envisioning the future and the road map.
• Business Service: Advising leaders and organizations who want to succeed in leading a transformational change, persistent disruptive challenge.
• Secret Sauce: Conscious leadership in the direction of going innovative and genuine and going towards evaluative solutions.
• CEO Hack: Reading poems. Book mention: The Art of Power by Thomas Jefferson – a good resource for dealing with clients who are going through tough times. 15-minute time for self-reflection every evening on what she is grateful for.
• CEO Nugget: Put together the elements of managing the execution of your strategy and enriching your energy.
• CEO Defined: The chief executive and chief energy officer are in constant harmony in order to be sustainable.

Website: generativeintelligence.eu

LinkedIn – albanavrioni

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUXA2yMf0lj-gI_-AUOsMuQ

Featured in:

Forbes Coaches Council – Albana-Vrioni-Founder-Executive-Business-Coach-Change-Adviser-Facilitator-Vrioni-Consulting

Brainz Magazine – executive-contributor/albana-vrioni

Author of Leading for Future Shaping with Generative Intelligence – generativeintelligence.eu/new-ebook

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Transcription

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00:24 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Albana Vrioni of generative Intelligent Coaching. Albana, it's great to have you on the show.

01:03 – Albana Vrioni

Thank you so much for hosting me, Gresh. I am pleased and honored to be with you and your audience.

01:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. The pleasure is all ours, and I love all the awesome things that you're doing. Before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Albana so you can hear about some of the awesome things that she's working on. Albana is a senior business manager and change leader, executive and business coach, author, speaker, and trainer specializing in business transformation, strategic business innovation, and organizational development.

Albana coaches and advises business leaders worldwide on generative leadership and business innovation, supporting them, re-imagining the future and seeing beyond what's obvious, and developing visionary thinking of infinite possibilities, shifting to a new state of mind and energy. She has over 20 years of experience in architecting and delivering business transformation for international businesses, European institutions, and agencies. Albana has served on various business functions like IT, BPM, and automation, managed security services, HR and organizational development, supply chain management, business development, and new product development.

She believes that business leaders hold the potential to change functions like ITBP. Managed security services of development, supply cha development, and new products believe that businesses lea of changing the game of the story of their lives a mission to support them t the future. Albana is super on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:27 – Albana Vrioni

Thank you so much, excited about the conversation.

02:34 – Gresham Harkless

I am too and I love everything you're doing. I'm like supercharged up by just you know hearing and reading your bio and hearing about all the awesome things. So I guess before we jumped into what you do, I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you got started when I call your CEO story.

02:49 – Albana Vrioni

Yeah, but that's an interesting reflection that I had on that question. And you see, my entire career is an exciting pursuit sparked by the opportunity to work with key leaders during the systemic changes in the early 90s in Europe. It was a period of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the emergence of new democracies. And since then, Enabling the success of undertakings that connect, inspire, inspire and create a narrative growth. That has been my passion, it's been my journey and my life's work. I grew up as a kid encouraged to be curious to question the status quo and to look for better alternatives.

And this is what I still do today, you know, I accompany my clients in being game changers and driving disruption and creating prosperity. So as you introduced me, it's true that over these 25 years of professional experience, I've delivered more than 25 critical projects ranging from 50k to 50 million euros. I've developed as a business transformation leader and strategic strategy strategies, partnering with leaders and teams who want to excel in business transformation and achieve their next-level success. And in all that, I have had experiences of bad failures, as well as those experiences of projects that have been outstanding and had growth like 300% yearly.

And you say, with all that background, what brought me into creating my own business? Actually, Since early in my career, I have shown a big interest in conscious leadership practices. I lost my brother in the big social unrest created in Albania in 97 from irresponsible leadership and governance. And so I had a firsthand experience of the desperate need for a leadership model that was driven by the long term by thinking sustainability and interconnectedness, so thinking systemic impact. And so that was the first drive of searching for something that went beyond what I did within the organizations where I was employed. And I did have great opportunities as an employer. And what we see is that people do not quit their companies, they quit their bosses.

And although this was clearly my case in my last employment, underlying this was a conflict, a conflict between what I wanted to realize and how I perceived it was possible within the boundaries of my organization and my role. So There was a clear misfit that I was feeling and I felt that what I wanted to bring to the world required working from an independent role. So that is what triggered me to say, hey, it's time for me to move on and be my own CEO. And that was a moment of deep reflection for me, exploring a world of knowledge and wisdom That was not yet in the repertoire of the employers, of my employers at that time. So I learned to put love and soul to what intrigued me intellectually and still have a viable business.

Deep down I knew that working out of love would pay off. Also through experiences I had within my organizations, I had well understood that from those experiences business leaders need to constantly develop capacities that keep them on course, that keep them on the top of their game. Yes, upgrading their technical and strategic skills, but beyond that, and mainly developing the capacity for a mindset shift, for envisaging the future and the roadmap for getting there, for committing oneself, engaging others into realizing that future.

Developing a capacity for influencing real estate beyond authority and creating strategic alignment in the large net of stakeholder interests. And that was something that deeply interested me. And I felt I had it in me. And I felt I could best deliver that on my own terms, again, being my own CEO. And here I am.

08:05 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So I know you touched a little bit upon how you work with and how you serve your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how you're making an impact for the clients that you work with?

08:15 – Albana Vrioni

Yeah, absolutely. So our activity focuses on advising leaders and organizations who want to succeed in what I call leading transformational change. Leaders and organizations who want to succeed in transforming a persisting or a disruptive challenge and sometimes in transforming an idea or a dream into an innovative project that transformational change. This activity can be in the context of reorganizations, business performance improvement, or what recently so many talked aboutas  digital transformation.

Knowing that in each of those cases, there is a need for cultural change at a team and or at a larger level. And so we work with reselling it and marketing with procurement teams HR teams and with IT teams. My direct involvement with the clients is done mostly through advising and coaching, but sometimes also engaging hands-on, As I say, side by side to make it happen. I love putting skin on the game and I tend to pursue client work where we grow both sides.

It's important for me that the client grows through our work, but it's also important for me to grow through my clients. Coaching is not about expertise in a function or in an industry, not at all. It's about the quality of self-mastery and sound mastery of the dynamics that influence the quality of human relationships at different levels. And this is where I offer reliable service to my clients across industries and functions. I don't know if that makes sense.

10:14 – Gresham Harkless

That makes perfect sense. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And that could be the thing for yourself, the business, or a combination. But what do you feel is it that conscious leadership that sets you apart and makes you unique?

10:25 – Albana Vrioni

Yeah, that's that that's it. This, of course, focuses on conscious leadership and what else to call generative leadership is being a conscious leader and going in the direction of being innovative and being genuine and going towards evaluative solutions. But what is also unique about what I do is that, that is the focus of my work. And next to it is how I do that. You see, I build that expertise on coaching and mentoring and advisory and when I work with the client I don't offer them either advisory or coaching or mentoring. I go for an integrated development offering to the client whatever the client needs to get to the next level of greatness.

And so I guess what I stand for is developing and working with a whole leader. So adoption of generative change, which is the core of my process, is still in its infancy, especially in the corporate world. We believe we're 2 partners in the organizations and we believe to are pioneers in bringing generative intelligence and generative leadership or conscious leadership in the service of leaders who want to make a difference and thrive on disruption. 1 person, 1 team, 1 organization at a time. I guess that's a differentiator of mine, yeah.

12:09 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

12:21 – Albana Vrioni

I love reading poems and there are quite a few selections of poems that brighten up my day. But on top of that, depending on where I feel the need at a certain moment to resource my thinking, my creativity, and my energy, I would go into different styles of books. For example, I remember that in tough conversations, especially with clients who were going through tough times, I found the art of power that gives a whole story of Thomas Jefferson very resourcing. In other times talking with clients who are going through difficulties or let's say scaling, the scaling or idea, what helps me and what I call my 15 minutes of time with myself every evening and noting what I am grateful for the day.

13:37 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love each of those hacks. And so what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

13:54 – Albana Vrioni

I think that in that role, there are 2 important words coming together. Chief executive and chief energy officer. You know, it's a role that gets together the executive and the energy working with each other in tandem and in harmony. Without that time and harmony between the executive and the energy officer, it's not going to work. It's not going to be sustainable. So there is 1 thing that I want to leave with my colleagues, my peers, with my clients, put together in whatever you're doing, the element of managing and executing your strategy, but also of managing and executing and enriching your energy. 1 cannot take you too long without the other.

14:57 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. And so is that a little bit on how you would define being a CEO? Our goal is to hopefully have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Albana, is that what being a CEO means to you is that Chief Energy Officer to Chief Executive Officer and combining those 2 things together?

15:13 – Albana Vrioni

Yeah, that is part of it, Definitely.

15:16 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Albana, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best people can get on view about all the awesome things you are working on.

15:33 – Albana Vrioni

I've got a website which has got quite some wealth of information in there. So generativeintelligence.eu. I am reachable on LinkedIn and of course, I'm reachable on my email.

15:50 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well to make that even easier we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. First, appreciate your time today.

15:59 – Albana Vrioni

Well, it has been a total honor and pleasure to have shared the mic with you, Gresh. And well, I wish you the best of luck in realizing your mission of bringing separating and distributing the knowledge to your wonderful audience.

16:17 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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