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 of changing 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 and questioning the status quo and looking for better alternatives. Helping clients thriving 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 its 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 that equipping these leaders to stay on top of the game not just in the capacity for technical skills but as well 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 of the element of managing the execution of your strategy and enriching your energy.
- CEO Defined: 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 – 01:03
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 – 01:09
Albana Vrioni: Thank you so much for hosting me, Gresh. I am pleased and honored to be with you and your audience.
01:10 – 01:44
Gresham Harkless: Yes, absolutely. The pleasure is all ours, and I love all the awesome things that you're doing. And before we jumped 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. And 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 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. And 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 of changing functions like ITBP. Managed security services of development, supply cha development and new product believes that business lea of changing the game of th the story of their lives a mission to support them t the future. Albana super on the show. Are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?
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02:27 – 02:32
Albana Vrioni: Thank you so m excited about the
02:34 – 02:48
Gresham Harkless: convers I am too and I love everything you're doing. I'm like super charged 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 – 03:34
Albana Vrioni: Yeah, but that's interesting reflection that I had on that on the 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 emergence of new democracies. And since then, Enabling the success of undertakings that connect, that 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 and to
03:34 – 04:23
Albana Vrioni: 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
04:23 – 05:21
Albana Vrioni: 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? And actually Since early in my career, I showed big interest on 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 on 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
05:21 – 06:07
Albana Vrioni: that was the first drive of searching for something that went beyond what I did within the organizations that 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 these 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
06:07 – 06:53
Albana Vrioni: 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
06:53 – 07:54
Albana Vrioni: 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 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
07:54 – 08:04
Albana Vrioni: 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 – 08:15
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 the impact for the clients that you work with?
08:15 – 09:13
Albana Vrioni: Yeah, absolutely. So our activity focuses on advising leaders and organizations who want to succeed in what I call in 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. And this activity can be in the context of reorganisations, business performance improvement, or what recently so much talks about 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
09:13 – 09:53
Albana Vrioni: we work with with resell it and marketing with procurement teams with HR teams and with IT teams. And 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,
09:53 – 10:11
Albana Vrioni: 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.
10:12 – 10:12
Gresham Harkless: I don't know if
10:12 – 10:13
Albana Vrioni: that makes sense.
10:14 – 10:25
Gresham Harkless: That makes perfect sense. And 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 – 11:11
Albana Vrioni: Yeah, that's that that's it. This, of course, that focus on conscious leadership and what else to call it generative leadership is being a conscious leader and going on the direction of being innovative and being genuine and going towards evaluative solutions. But what is also unique on what I do is that, so 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
11:11 – 12:00
Albana Vrioni: 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. And So adoption of generative change, which is the core of my process, is still in its infancy, and especially in the corporate world. And we believe we're 2 partners in the organizations and we believe to be 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
12:01 – 12:09
Albana Vrioni: person, 1 team, 1 organization at a time. I guess that's a differentiator of mine, yeah.
12:09 – 12:21
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 – 13:22
Albana Vrioni: I love reading poems and there are quite a few selection of poems that brighten up my day. But on top of that, depending on where I feel the need at a certain moment to to resource my thinking, my creativity, my energy, I would go into different styles of books. For example, I remember that on 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. And in other times talking with clients who were going through difficulties or let's say scaling, the
13:22 – 13:37
Albana Vrioni: 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 – 13:53
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 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 – 14:48
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 that gets together the executive and the energy working with each other in tandem and in harmony. Without that time and harmony of 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, with my peers, with my clients, put together in whatever you're doing, the element of managing and executing your strategy, but also of managing
14:48 – 14:56
Albana Vrioni: and executing and enriching your energy. 1 cannot take you too long without the other.
14:57 – 15:12
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 – 15:15
Albana Vrioni: Yeah, that is part of it, Definitely.
15:16 – 15:33
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 – 15:50
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 – 15:59
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 – 16:16
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 on realizing your mission of bringing and 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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