ExCo offsite facilitation Archives

Driving alignment through a strategic growth offsite

The Brief

Our client approached us to design and facilitate a full-day offsite aimed at aligning their asset management business around a refreshed five-year growth ambition. With a mandate to double AUM, while preserving margin and culture, the brief called for a session that would challenge assumptions, foster cross-functional dialogue and galvanise the team around a shared narrative. The event needed to balance strategic clarity and practical next steps.

Our Delivery

We curated a highly interactive agenda that blended strategic framing with team-led content and live polling. Working closely with the CEO and ExCo members, we helped shape and refine individual sessions to ensure consistency and coherence across the day. The use of Slido polls and QR-enabled feedback mechanisms encouraged real-time engagement and gave valuable insights. We also supported session leads in sharpening their messages and facilitated transitions to maintain momentum. The day culminated in a collective synthesis of key themes and commitments, with a clear pathway for follow-up.

The Impact

The offsite was widely praised for its clarity and cohesion. Participants noted a stronger sense of shared purpose and a clearer understanding of how their functions contribute to the firm’s strategic goals. The use of live polling and interactive formats helped surface honest feedback and fostered a more open culture of dialogue. The final deck cascaded across the business, reinforcing alignment and accountability. Our client has since expressed interest in extending this approach to other leadership forums, signalling a shift towards more participatory and purpose-driven engagement.

High-impact executive offsite for a UK PE Fund

The Brief

Our client, a UK Mid Cap PE fund, sought to create a high-impact offsite experience for its Executive Committee, designed to foster strategic alignment, deepen team cohesion and provide space for reflective thinking away from the day-to-day. The brief called for a setting that balanced professional focus with informal connection, enabling senior leaders to engage in open dialogue around future priorities, leadership dynamics, and organisational culture.

Our Delivery

Goldcrest Partners curated and facilitated a two-day offsite in London, blending structured strategic sessions with informal moments that encouraged candour and creativity. We worked closely with the whole leadership team to shape an agenda that combined forward-looking business planning with leadership development themes. Our team managed all aspects of delivery – from venue sourcing and logistics to session design and facilitation – ensuring a seamless experience. The offsite included a mix of plenary discussions and breakout workshops, in addition to reflective exercises, all tailored to our client’s unique culture and strategic context.

The Impact

The offsite delivered tangible outcomes: renewed clarity on strategic priorities and stronger alignment across the leadership team. Importantly, the offsite resulted in a shared commitment to key initiatives for the year ahead. Feedback from the leadership team highlighted the value of the space created for honest conversation and deeper connection. The setting and structure enabled the team to step back to think differently and return with renewed energy and focus. The success of the London offsite has since informed the design of future leadership gatherings across the organisation.

Aligning senior leaders for the next phase of growth

The Brief

Our client, a leading UK-based investment partnership, approached us to design and facilitate a senior leadership offsite aimed at aligning the Executive Committee around a bold new growth ambition. The brief was to create a space for strategic reflection, cultural evolution and operational challenge – while strengthening team cohesion and surfacing the unspoken dynamics that could hinder progress. The offsite needed to provoke honest debate, generate actionable outcomes and, ultimately, set the tone for the next phase of the firm’s development.

Our Delivery

We designed a two-day offsite experience that combined immersive exercises, structured strategy sessions and informal connection. Day one focused on team dynamics and cultural reflection, using a discussion-based exercise to explore collaboration and challenge. Strategy sessions tackled the firm’s client proposition, operational model and cultural identity, with space for individual reflection and group debate. Vitally, we introduced mechanisms to surface difficult topics constructively. Day two shifted to acceleration – how to scale efficiently, embrace technology and clarify decision-making structures. Throughout, we facilitated with a light but firm touch, ensuring psychological safety while encouraging radical thinking.

The Impact

The offsite delivered a step-change in alignment and ambition. The team committed to sharpening their focus on growth – anchored by operational efficiency and reinforced by cultural consistency. Among the outputs were refreshed cultural commitments and a prioritised list of strategic actions, but perhaps most importantly, a renewed sense of collective ownership. Participants spoke of the value they found in open dialogue and constructive challenge, as well as the reassurance of clear next steps. Since then, the offsite has served as a reference point for how the leadership team intends to work together: strategically focused, culturally grounded and confident in tackling the hard questions.

Supporting an executive committee go from good to great

The Brief

The client was a UK-based insurance business. The executive committee were established, effective and enjoyed good relationships. Industry dynamics were demanding a new strategy that was challenging the internal status quo and there were some blockers standing in the way of success. The brief was to create the environment for difficult conversations to occur, change to be embraced and alignment around the new strategy established.

The Engagement

The engagement began with consultation with the organisational sponsors (CEO and HRD) to understand the organisational objectives, the dynamics present and plan a path to the desired end-state. There was recognition that this would be a process. Time was needed to develop awareness, integrate change and embed new ways of working.

We used the Goldcrest 7 Conditions for High-Performing Teams diagnostic to establish the team’s current state, strengths, and weaknesses. Then, based on those findings, we developed a 12-month development programme to effect change.

The programme kicked off with a two-day offsite, start the conversations that needed to take place, and begin shaping the strategy. The teamwork discussions and the strategy planning activity were interwoven, each mutually improving the other.

Following the offsite, we engaged with the executive committee bi-monthly at their scheduled meetings, supporting them to generate fresh thinking and put what they had agreed into practice.

Additionally, we coached several of the members alongside the team development to support specific areas of their development.

The Outcome

Progress has been significant. The quality of the conversations and relationships has improved significantly. Healthy challenge is much more welcome, and there is alignment behind the new strategy. The change has been notable to the teams of each executive committee member, leading to better motivation and a faster pace of delivery.

Design and facilitation of a global working conference

The Brief

The client wanted to bring together all its managing directors (c.80 people) from across Europe for its first in-person gathering in 5 years. Much had changed in that time, however. Due to various factors the opportunity to bring everyone together had not occurred. The cohort was mixed, with many recent joiners but the common theme was an absence on in-person connection.

The aim of the 2-day conference was 2-fold: Open debate about critical strategic decisions, inviting ideas and generating buy-in; build the network across the MD population to encourage collaboration and cross-selling.

The Engagement

Goldcrest was engaged to both co-design and to facilitate the conference. Our key stakeholder was the CEO and we collaborated to help draft their opening session to set the tone. Additionally, we worked with the CFO, sector leads and others to coach them through the creation and delivery of their sessions.

The Outcome

The result was a highly engaged and enthused MD population with tangible messages to take back to their teams. Some acknowledged that they arrived sceptical of such gatherings but left positive and delighted with the quality of the presentations, the conversation, the venue and the facilitation.

Repairing a broken executive committee

The Brief

The client was a national bank where relationships on the executive committee had become strained. This unfortunate situation was depleting energy and impacting the effectiveness of execution. The brief was to bring everyone together to ‘have it out’ and rebuild the trust between team members necessary to perform.

The Engagement

We partnered with the CEO to understand the issues and how they were presenting. This informed the process design to address and remedy the challenges within the executive committee. As a result, these were the actions we took:

One-to-one meetings with each executive committee member to establish trust in Goldcrest and the process, and to hear their perspectives
2-day offsite to work through the Goldcrest high performing team framework to establish a positive template to work towards and highlight the interdependency of each team member and their functions
Facilitated ‘clear the air’ conversations to work through issues and achieve recognition that the execution of strategy was being hampered by the lack of cohesion
Established clarity and commitment about roles, responsibilities, and rules of engagement necessary for success

The Outcome

Feedback from the client described the process as refreshingly honest and essential to moving forward. The executive committee are still using the tools and structures agreed upon to make better decisions, to address contentious issues and communicate more effectively with one another. Goldcrest provided ongoing support to cascade this into the individual executive committee members’ teams.

Reconnecting a senior leadership team of an asset manager

The Brief

The client was the senior leadership team of an asset management business. Following the global pandemic, several changes had taken place with some leavers and joiners. The business faced significant headwinds and needed to ensure the leadership team addressing the challenges was as tight and high performing as possible.

The Engagement

Our solution was to run a high-performing team workshop for the group over a two-day offsite. We balanced the offsite to address the team’s characteristics, strengths, and gaps, with strategic discussion of the macro challenges. We used our proprietary ‘Conditions for High Performing Teams’ checklist as the basis of the gap analysis.

The Outcome

The process was a resounding success. The value of bringing the team together was palpable in the enthusiasm and joy at genuine human connection after such unnatural separation. Feedback from the CEO following the event described the team being more connected and aligned than ever, demonstrating strong examples of leadership and teamwork that were beginning to positively shift the organisational culture in the right direction.

Enabling an asset manager’s ExCo to implement strategy

The Brief

Our client was an asset manager which had not taken the executive team offsite or spent any time together beyond the boardroom. Having reached a significant strategic decision point, the firm needed time and space to consider where it was going, why it was going there and the journey it would take to get there.

The Engagement

Our solution was to design a process to allow the team to discuss the issues that mattered while spending time together, away from the office, getting to better understand one another and their challenges. Initially there was scepticism towards this new process from individuals who had heard the stereotypes around offsites and team building. However, as we demonstrated this was about a strategic conversation within a facilitated environment, the sceptics quickly became advocates and were fully engaged.

The Outcome

The outcome was two-fold: a refreshed purpose, vision and strategy in light of a fast-changing macro environment, and a more connected team.

Creating a culture for the next chapter of growth

The Brief

Our client was a leading UK wealth management firm. The new CEO engaged us early in their tenure to help them define the existing culture, establish the desired future culture and support in that change journey.

The Engagement

Our solution was multi-faceted. Initially we needed to get to know the organisation and earn the trust of key players. Once that trust was built, we were able to explore the lived experience through a series of workshops, focus groups and one-to-one conversations. We started concurrently at the executive committee and the new entry levels of the organisation, working our way into the centre. It was vital to identify the individuals who had informal influence and were positive culture carriers and engage them early.

The Outcome

Over a period of six months, we built a picture of what worked well and what could be changed. We supported them to create a new set of values, helped roll them out and give them meaning. Finally, we developed a programme to build the senior management’s leadership capabilities and bind them together as a collaborative layer.

Refreshing strategy and leadership for the next chapter

The Brief

The client was a privately owned asset manager that was looking to build on historic success with a strategic shift in the face of a changing commercial environment. The organisation was new to working with an external specialist in this way and were cautious about the investment and the benefits. Despite this reticence, continued business success required a fresh approach and that was demonstrated by the executive committee’s willingness to try something different.

The Engagement

The engagement was to design a process to build the trust that would allow the executive committee to discuss the issues that mattered while spending time together, away from the office and the usual Boardroom dynamic. We started with a round of one-to-one interviews that built rapport, enabled the key strategic issues to be surfaced and the crafting of a meaningful agenda for a 2-day offsite.

The offsite was facilitated by 2 Goldcrest consultants who steered the strategic discussion, connected the conversation to the leadership behaviours needed to underpin success, and galvanised the team around their collective purpose. We followed the event with a pair of follow up sessions to track progress, embed
learnings and maintain momentum.

The Outcome

The initial scepticism, quickly transformed into enthusiasm. This allowed a refreshed purpose, vision and strategy considering a fast-changing macro environment, and a more connected team that was able to model the leadership and teamwork required for success.