Mario Elias Gonzalez, Former Responsible Business Manager at CEMEX

I had a $250K budget to deliver an in-person 12-month training program to embed CEMEX's responsible business strategy into teams of more than 100 across 20 countries.

The Challenge

I had been coached by Shannon on career development and knew she was a top quality coach and consultant.  Then, as an emerging leader at CEMEX, I hired her as a consultant to help me:

- Build credibility and fix our department's image internally after having two workshops go wrong with another consultant.

- Create a shared understanding across a matrixed organization about social impact as part of launching the new global strategy.

- Build internal alliances with 25 countries’ Responsible Business and Corporate Affairs teams.

- Build my personal gravitas and trust with leadership across the countries.

The Solution

One of the things I found most valuable is that Shannon provided guidance and support to me at a deeper personal level in terms of my professional development in the context of this big consulting project.  She is a trustworthy expert, very adaptable, and quickly responded to lots of moving parts under pressure. 

Shannon created the entire training presentation deck and methodology that was very engaging, thorough and comprehensive for the two-day workshop series.

She co-delivered these workshops with me in eight of the 20 countries, teaching me facilitation and influencing skills along the way.

She helped me get the buy-in from the bottom up and trained me on how to build relationships and trust across a culturally diverse and complex company. 

After each workshop Shannon would improve the presentation with new ideas based on feedback so the next version kept getting better.  She had a growth mindset throughout.

The Result

The result was that I was able to build credibility and trust with my key internal stakeholders. 

The transformation of the local teams from skeptical to fully bought-in within the short two day workshops was impressive and unprecedented thanks to Shannon's facilitation style and ability to engage audiences to shift mindsets.

She not only engaged the teams to co-design the key pillars of our global strategy, but she also then developed the policies and guidelines to implement it. 

My gravitas internally grew exponentially and I was able to gain the trust and credibility, respect and visibility in a very large organization.  It gave me the confidence to play at the senior level and network to build connections internally.  This later opened doors for me as I was able to pick up the phone to the country CEOs.