Some Anniversaries Get Cake. This One Gets Fireworks and Good News.
- MSN
- Jul 14
- 4 min read
This month, The HR Savant celebrates three years. And I am celebrating.
Three years of deliberate building deserve a moment of genuine joy, and this month the calendar agrees with me. July is a month of independence celebrations across the world, from Canada to the United States, Argentina, France, Colombia, Belgium, and Peru. A month of pride, fireworks, and freedom, and in the middle of it, an anniversary I am proud of.
Evolution is a process of change and development. It is a decision, sustained over time. This month I get to celebrate what that decision has produced. And more importantly, what it makes possible for the leaders and organizations I serve.
The And
If you asked me to describe this practice in one word, I would not choose a noun. I would choose a conjunction.
And.
For years, professionals have been told the story of either/or. Either you build a corporate career or you build your own. Either you go deep or you go broad. Either you stay or you leave. I have never accepted that story, and three years of The HR Savant are my answer to it.
I intentionally expanded beyond the walls of one organization. Corporate and independent. Brussels and the United States. Europe and North America and South America and Asia-Pacific. Two decades of HR leadership in global environments and a practice built on everything those decades taught me.
And the same word runs through the work itself. One practice, four expressions. I lead, a discipline built inside global organizations across chemicals, aerospace, automotive, and advanced manufacturing. And I advise, on leadership transitions and complex organizational change. And I govern, through board service, where the same judgment extends into stewardship. And I coach leaders and organizations in the moments between who they were and who they need to become.
Not either/or. And. That is not a compromise. That is the design.
Independence, and what it means for you
I mark this anniversary in a month full of independence celebrations, and that lands with particular sweetness. But I want to be precise about what the word means here, because in my work it is not symbolic.
Independence is what my clients receive. A neutral partner. A certified mediator with no internal agenda, no reporting line inside your organization, and no stake in any outcome except the right one. When the leader and the role are misaligned, when the high potential is not ready, when the senior team is not aligned, when the organization is navigating complexity with a misaligned people strategy, neutrality is not a nice quality in an advisor. It is the requirement.
And this is true whether you lead a multinational or a growing business without a deep HR bench. The problems do not scale down. Only the support around the leader does.
And now: Brainz Magazine
A celebration worth having looks forward. So here is what is next.
I am honored to join Brainz Magazine as an Executive Contributor.
Over the coming months, I will be writing on leadership transitions and complex organizational change for a publication reaching millions of readers worldwide. Each article will take on one leadership conundrum, the kind that resists formula, demands judgment, and offers no answer that does not cost something. The executive leader in transition. The high potential who is not ready. The senior team that will not align. The strategy the organization cannot yet execute.
And true to form, this is not a departure. It is the same practice, extended to another "new" room. These articles are written for one reader: the leader in the gap, and the organization counting on them. If that is you, this is specifically for you.
The number three
Three years is a meaningful measure. In 2018, a name. In 2023, a practice. In 2026, full independence. Each milestone built on the one before it, the way every leader I work with builds: not in one move, but in deliberate succession.
And what did three years produce?
Creation: frameworks and engagements built from a deliberate vision and focus.
Connection: a practice powered entirely by collaborations, speaking and conversations, in Brussels, the UK, across the United States, and around the world.
Optimism: the earned kind, grounded in naming what is hard and working through it.
Synthesis: corporate depth and independent perspective combining into something neither could have produced alone.
And underneath all four, one principle above the others. Every relationship begins the same way, with a conversation.
Here is to what is next
So here is the question this celebration poses, to me and to you.
Not what are you leaving behind. What are you growing toward, and are you choosing it deliberately? Three years into anything you are building, three months into any role you have taken, three weeks into any change you are leading, the date on the calendar is not the milestone. The distance between who you were and who you are becoming is.
If you are a leader in that gap right now, between the announcement and the becoming, that is precisely the work I do, as the advisor beside your decision and the coach beside your becoming. Transitions, complexity, and change will not define your outcome. How you lead yourself through them will.
Three years. One practice. Four expressions. A new publication. And a great deal more still taking shape.
Coaching question: What in your work today is an extension of who you have always been, and what would it take to give it formal shape?
If you are navigating that gap, or preparing someone who is, the conversation is worth having.
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