Building an Aligned, Culture-Driving Senior Leadership Team For A High-Growth Investment Firm

The Challenge

The business is a high-growth fund management firm focused on climate-driven investment opportunities. As the company scaled, leaders were hired and developed for their functional excellence, which was exactly what the business needed in its early stages. However, as the firm and its Senior Leadership Team matured, functional expertise alone was no longer enough; the organisation now needed leaders who could operate as an aligned enterprise team rather than as a collection of strong individuals.

• A high-growth, climate-focused investment firm had a capable, mission-aligned Senior Leadership Team, but they were operating as strong individuals rather than as a unified leadership team.
• Leaders were primarily focused on their own functional areas, with communication that was reactive, detail-heavy and inconsistent across the business.
• Psychological safety and performance expectations were unclear, meaning alignment relied on goodwill instead of shared, explicit leadership principles.
• The pace of delivery left little space for reflection, and there was no clearly defined leadership identity or emotional culture to anchor how the SLT led together.

The Results

• A year-long partnership built a shared language around leadership, accountability and performance through a management & leadership development programme.
• A live 360 feedback process highlighted four key shifts: from functional expert to enterprise leader; from transactional updates to storytelling; from over-functioning to empowering others; and from cultural drift to intentional leadership identity.
• A senior leadership away day used LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and the Emotional Culture Deck to clarify purpose, define the desired emotional culture, and co-create an Emotional Culture Canvas.
• 100% of the SLT participated, resulting in more “firm-first” thinking, more distributed accountability, clearer narrative communication, and a shared understanding that culture is a core leadership responsibility.