People and culture, with organizational psychology behind the strategy.

Capital and strategy do not make a company succeed on their own. We work on the human side of organizations, including the difficult and sensitive topics that hold them back, or that nobody has time to face.

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Culture, designed on purpose.

A culture inventory shows your stakeholders, your reasons and your core values, and where those values live today in policy, strategy, operations and communication. From it we build a culture roadmap with your team, so people own their part of it.

  • Culture inventory. What your values are, and where they show up and where they do not.
  • Culture roadmap. Roles, processes and stakeholder needs mapped to the culture you want.
  • Hybrid and remote ways of working. Meetings, communication and collaboration tied to your strategic goals, drawing on Magnus’s Future of Work study and its work with technology organizations, including in Silicon Valley.
  • A collective, collaborative work culture. A culture built with the people who live in it: shared purpose, shared ways of working and decisions that draw on the whole team, so it belongs to everyone and holds when leaders change.
  • Tuning a culture you have started. Getting traction on what you are already building.

Emotional intelligence and leadership.

Emotional intelligence is the base of leadership and creativity: knowing yourself, saying things clearly, handling time, conflict and stress, building trust and deciding well. The practical edge is making it usable under pressure: not theory, but capability that holds when the conversation gets hard.

This work grew out of EILI, the Emotional Intelligence Leadership Institute. It now takes two forms: this consulting practice, and Ellie.

  • Built in as a way of working. Leadership development and culture strategy that become how you operate, not a training program.
  • Team scenario evaluation. A two-hour business case with a stress-inducing twist. It shows your team’s strengths and challenges in leadership, emotional intelligence, communication, values and culture, and gives us a clear basis for supporting its growth.
  • Learning and development. Programs that help leaders handle complex situations and keep growing.
  • Hard working relationships. Support with sticky, difficult or toxic dynamics, so the workplace can be healthy again.
  • One method underneath. Assess, regulate, respond, reflect, the same four parts that run every conversation with Ellie.
  • Ellie alongside. A coach for people at every level, private to each person, with anonymized patterns for your People leaders.

A culture people build together holds.

Change, transition and rapid growth.

Bringing people along matters as much as the plan. Buy-in is built, not announced.

  • Hiring for fit and succession planning.
  • People assessment and transition in mergers and acquisitions.
  • Leadership and CEO strategic support and coaching.
  • Mediation and negotiation.
  • Organizational design and structure.
  • Individual assessment, executive development, and board and CEO services.

Inclusive leadership and belonging.

Talent leaves, or stalls, when the way work gets done does not fit the people doing it. That is a leadership question as much as a policy one. We have worked with women in leadership, with intersectionality and on DEIB, and we keep it practical, open to everyone and grounded in evidence.

  • Women in leadership. Support that helps women advance and stay: sponsorship, visibility and an honest look at what gets in the way.
  • Intersectionality. Understanding how gender, race and culture, age, disability, class and other parts of identity combine, so programs and policies fit the actual people in them.
  • Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Strategy and assessment, fair hiring, promotion and pay processes, leadership accountability and clear measures, aligned with the laws where you operate.
  • Inclusive leadership. Skills for the managers who set the tone every day.
  • In your words. Inclusion, belonging, fairness or culture: we use the language that fits your organization and your markets.

Research behind the practice.

Twenty-five years of experience, and research on leadership, culture and systems that Magnus delivers to venture capital funds in Silicon Valley.

Start with a conversation.

Tell us what you are working with. A person reads every request and will tell you honestly whether we can help.

Confidential. No pitch. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and point you somewhere better.

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