Unconventional Leadership Enthusiast | Creator and propagator of the "5E's of Leadership" | Empowering Leaders to Transform & Thrive in the Age of Change

When leaders face tough situations — turnarounds, post-acquisition chaos, leadership breakdowns, toxic culture, execution failures — they don’t need advice or frameworks.
They need someone who can step in, take ownership, and deliver results.

That’s what I do.

I bring 20+ years of senior HR and organizational leadership experience across EMEA, with 10+ large-scale transformation assignments. I embed with executive teams, stabilize situations fast (3–6 months), and build sustainable leadership and organizational capability over 12–18 months.

I work at the intersection of leadership, decision-making, and organizational systems — where strong individuals often struggle to operate as a coherent whole under pressure.

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Selected impact:

→ German manufacturing business in crisis
Leadership vacuum, toxic culture, massive talent exodus.
Turned €10M annual losses into breakeven within 12 months.

→ Three Italian plants operating as warring factions
No alignment, no shared priorities.
Built cross-plant leadership alignment; European product sales increased by ~25%.

→ Young leadership team blocked by entrenched resistance
Coached and supported them through a full transformation.
Order execution speed improved by 30%; complete business model turnaround within one year.

→ Severe labor availability crisis across Eastern Europe
Attrition reduced from 25% to 8%; seasonal staffing stabilized through leadership and HR mobilization.

→ Quality function collapse after global product recall
Rebuilt the function from scratch, replaced half of leadership.
All critical issues resolved within 12 months; quality records broken year after year since.

→ Commercial organization with toxic culture and recurring losses
Transformed into the fastest-growing commercial team in Europe within 18 months.

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How I work

Beyond classic interim leadership, I increasingly use facilitated business simulations to make leadership and decision-making dynamics visible under pressure.
They help executive teams see — within hours — patterns that often remain hidden in meetings for years.

This is not training and not theory.
It’s a way to surface how decisions interact, where responsibility concentrates or disappears, and why strong teams sometimes underperform as a system.

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Where I typically engage

• Crisis stabilization
• Post-acquisition integration
• Leadership transitions
• Culture and execution transformation

Scope: EMEA.

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Available for Interim CHRO / HR Director assignments and executive-level transformation work.
High travel is not an issue.


Mikhail Lvovskii

I used to introduce myself as an HR Business Partner.

Then a plant manager told me: I don't need a partner. I need someone who tells me what I don't want to hear.

That stuck.

See, "partner" sounds strategic. It sounds like you're in the room, working together, nodding along.

But in the real world, when a business is in trouble,
agreement is the last thing that moves the needle.

Leaders don't need another person cosigning their decisions.
They need someone who points out what everyone else is quietly ignoring.
Someone who's willing to be unpopular.
Someone who calls out the elephant, every single time.

That's what makes you valuable.
Not sitting at the table.
Not your seat on the org chart.

The best HR people aren't just partners.
They're mirrors. The kind that shows the full, messy picture,no matter who's looking.

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Happy New 2006 Year to everyone!
Best wishes to you and your closed ones!

Certified Transformational Coach

Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR)

Change Management. Level 4. Change Trainer.

Coaching for Performance. Train the Trainer

Continuous Improvement and Lean Management

EQ 360 degrees feed-back coach

Efficient methods of recruitment and headhunting

Electrolux Leader

Electrolux Next Level Leader

HR Academy

Job Evaluation: Mercer's methodology

People management skills

People management training. Train the trainer

Preparation to GPHR certification

Samsung Leadership program

StoreWars business simulation

Storytelling

Interim HR leadership and transformation execution for organizations facing crisis, transition, or underperformance.

Short- to mid-term Organizational interventions to the teams with dysfunctions, in order to build high the basis for high performance.

Selected projects:

Pharma (multinational, CEE) – Reset the top team, introduced ambitious visioning and planning cadence, strengthened collaboration → positioned business for accelerated market growth.

Global Electronics producer – Advised on HR operating model redesign, aligning service delivery with business strategy → increased ownership by line managers, freed HR from admin.

Industrial Plant (Germany/Poland border, 900 employees) – Installed accountability ladder and reset leadership culture → productivity lifted by 20% in 3 months.

Law Firm (Poland, 400 employees) – Partnered with new HR Director after failed engagement survey → leadership reset, trust rebuilt, attrition slowed within 6 months.

Founder and Principal Consultant

Helping companies overcome challenges in the area of people, leadership and culture.
Helping to run organizational transformation: design, implementation, change management.
Transforming HR organizations to be true business partners and move them towards business drivers.

Chief Transformational Officer

Built HR function from scratch for international logistics company: strategy through execution, all processes, leadership team across 15 countries.

Led three major turnaround initiatives:

German Entity Turnaround (2023-2024)
Situation: German manufacturing entity in crisis — leadership vacuum, toxic culture, talent exodus. Running consistent losses (-10M EUR annually) despite major technology investment.
Action: Led leadership and culture reset. Addressed talent crisis through targeted interventions. Aligned leadership team around performance recovery. Reviewed and streamlined key functional processes.
Result: From -10M EUR annual losses to breakeven within 1 year. Organization stabilized, leadership aligned, underperformers exited.

Italian Operations Integration (2023-2024)
Situation: Three Italian plants operating as warring factions — fighting internally and resisting collaboration with European operations.
Action: Drove cross-plant alignment initiatives. Broke down silos between Italian entities and broader European organization. Built collaborative leadership culture.
Result: Italian product sales in Europe increased ~25%. Unified operations, established productive collaboration. Refreshed Italian management at top 2 layers.

Lithuania Leadership Transition (2022-2024)
Situation: Young leadership team installed after leadership reset, struggling to drive change in entrenched old-guard organization.
Action: Coached and supported new leadership team through transformation. Helped build credibility and change capability. Addressed resistance, aligned organization around new direction.
Result: Orders execution speed improved 30%. Complete business model turnaround from imports to local production within 1 year. Annual growth 15%.

European operations sold to strategic buyer in 2024 following successful stabilization.

Chief Human Resources Officer

Progressive HR leadership across EMEA Industrial Operations, with four major turnaround/transformation cases:

Quality Function Crisis Recovery (2018-2019)
Situation: Global quality scandal — mass product recall (dishwashers) causing massive financial losses and reputational damage. Quality function neglected for years: incompetent team, weak culture, no credibility.
Action: Partnered with new Quality leader to rebuild from ground up. Replaced more than half of leadership team. Redefined function's mission. Recruited high-caliber talent. Coached leader through confidence gaps.
Result: All critical quality issues resolved within 12 months. Historical quality records broken every subsequent year. Function transformed from liability to competitive advantage.

East Europe Manufacturing Labor Crisis (2018-2019)
Situation: By season 2018: zero applications for seasonal workers, significant drop in permanent worker inflow. No one wanted to join Electrolux factories.
Action: Gathered EMEA Manufacturing leadership to develop comprehensive solution. Introduced migrant workers approach despite strong stakeholder resistance.
Result: Decreased workers' attrition from 25% to 8% within months. Employee engagement improved 22 percentage points in Eastern Europe. Season 2018 sdtafed fully. YoY productivity and OEE targets over-achieved for first time in Eastern Europe.

Supply Chain Centralization (2014-2016)
Situation: Major organizational restructuring — centralizing Supply Chain operations across EMEA. Experienced plant managers losing power. Strong resistance, lack of trust, leadership vacuum.
Action: Deployed as embedded change agent. Bridged gaps between central leadership and local plant management. Ensured functioning of new structure during transition.
Result: New centralized organization successfully established and operational. Achieved strategic targets for product delivery at improving cost. New SC organization gained trust and demonstrated advanced capabilities.

HR Director Industrial Operations EMEA (from 2019 - Europe)

Commercial Organization Turnaround
Situation: Dysfunctional commercial organization with toxic culture, chronic underperformance, consistent losses. Managing Director terminated in week two of my arrival.
Action: Kept business running for 4 months while assessing team. Personally removed most toxic individuals. Rebuilt leadership culture around accountability. Supported onboarding of new MD and completed organizational reset.
Result: Transformed from loss-making unit to fastest-growing commercial team in Europe. Delivered significant sales growth and profit turnaround within 18 months. Built self-steering team capable of sustaining performance.

Regional HR Director (CIS counties + Baltics)

HR leadership for industrial gas operations including oversight of two M&A integration projects. Managed complex stakeholder environment, aligned cultures and systems across acquired entities while maintaining operational stability.
Assured stable business functioning along severe Financial crisis of 2008-2009, forcing mass redudancies and business restructuring. While making sure 2 entities acquired pre-crisis were integrating into the business wihtout performance loss.

HR Director

Regional HR leadership across CIS markets for consumer electronics business.
Establishing HR system from scratch along shaping new Global region in CIS.

CIS Region HR Manager

Post-merger integration of Business Consulting practice into IBM structure. Aligning processes, leadership practices and culture.

HR Manager. Business Consulting Services department (integration project)

Recruitment and development support for the pilot project for the emerging business model of dedicated software development centres.

Recruitment Manager

Interim HR Director/CHRO | Turnaround & Transformation Specialist | I stabilize broken organizations and rebuild dysfunctional teams

English

German

Polish

Russian

SHRM

Team effectiveness - from strategy to execution · Creator of QurumQ team behavior simulation · ex-Electrolux, Linde, Samsung, IBM, Luxoft

€50,000 blown on a leadership offsite.

Three months later, same problems.

Great facilitator. Gorgeous venue. Everyone left happy.

Nothing changed.

The offsite treated symptoms, not systems.
For a week, everyone played nice. Then reality snapped back.

One person still hogged decisions.
Old conflicts, still swept under the rug.
Alignment, still fake.

Feeling good together doesn't fix teams.
Seeing, then fixing, how a team actually works does. 

Most team building is a vacation from dysfunction.
Real development? Brutal. It's a mirror, not a retreat.

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A factory was bleeding money.

Everyone expected layoffs.

I started with something different.

I asked the shift supervisors what they'd do if they ran the place.

The answers were sharper than anything the leadership team had cooked up.

No management speak. No theory.

They named the broken machines, the wasted steps, and the dumb rules that slowed down every shift.

They didn't need a consultant or a strategy deck.

They needed someone to ask, listen, and act.

The people closest to the work had been watching the real problems for years. Nobody had bothered to ask.

The turnaround kicked off the day leadership stopped pretending they had all the answers.

You want a transformation? 

Before you start buying frameworks and hiring experts, try something radical.

Ask the people staring at the mess every day how they'd fix it.

Then actually listen.

She was one of our best.

On her last day, I asked why she was really leaving.

She said, "I've been leaving for two years. No one noticed."

That's the part no one wants to hear.

By the time someone resigns, the decision was made months ago.

You can track the trail if you bother to look.

First comes the silence in meetings. 
Then the suggestions that go nowhere.
After that, the missed promotion, or no feedback at all.

It's a slow fade.

Most companies don't see it, or pretend not to.

Then they schedule the exit interview, hoping for some honest insight.

But by then, it's just an autopsy.

The real work is upstream. If you want blunt truth, ask before people disengage. 

Stay interviews. Candid check-ins. Not the end, the middle.

Ask early. Ask often. Or get comfortable with good people silently slipping out the door.

You choose which kind of interview you prefer.

There are two types of team building.

One asks, "Do we like each other?"
That's escape rooms, cooking classes, drinks after work.
Easy to buy, easy to deliver.
Zero impact on Monday morning.

The other asks, "How do we function when it matters?"
Now you're talking resource constraints, time pressure, clashing priorities.
You put the team in the fire. Watch what surfaces.
It's messy. It's uncomfortable. Most companies run the other way.

After 25 years, I've seen the same pattern.
- Teams that choose comfort stay stuck.
- Teams that choose the mirror, the hard look at reality, break through every time.

You want transformation?
Skip the trust falls.
Choose the mirror.

Forget teaching.

The fastest way to develop a team isn't to lecture, train, or hand them a new model.

It's to throw them into a real situation that reveals their default patterns, good and bad.

No slides. No expert diagnosis. Just a mirror.

Let them see the gap for themselves.

After 25 years of running all the types of workshops and interventions, I don't believe in top-down development.

People don't shift because someone tells them how.

They shift when they see what they're actually doing, together, in real time.

That discomfort? That clarity? It does the heavy lifting.

The hard part: engineering that moment without artifice or theater.

That's the edge I've been focused on. More on the method soon.

Networking w swiecie przedsiębiorców jest niezbędny.
Ale jak być jeżeli nie jesteś "stąd"?

Przeprowadziłem się do Wrocławia, no i do Polski, ponad 12 łat temu, po 37 łatach spędzonych w rodzinnym kraju i miejście.

Tak się stało ze długie łata skupiłem się na karjerze korporacyjnej tego pracodawcy który mi tutaj przywiózł. I nie myśliałem że poza ramami tego pracodawcy też jest życie. Nie budowałem sieci.

Tak się wydarzyło że 5 łat temu stwierdziłem że chcę kontynuować swoją drogę samodzielnie, prowadzić własny biznes. 
Ale się okazało że network który miałem był słaby. Jakość sieci po moim ocenam bardzo niska. Większość wartościowych kontaktów to jedna firma - mój były pracodawca.

Probowałem rózne sposoby, ale włąsnie nic nie działa lepiej niż spotkanie tet-a-tet i dzielenie się wiedzą.

Dzięki Martyna Lempert, z której się poznaliśmy z połtora tygodni chyba, już po raz drugi biorę udział w spotkaniu kameralnym przedsiębiorców Wrocławia. I to własnie jest wartość ludzkich relacji - poradzić, skierować, pomóc. 
Dzięki Martyna jeszcze raz!

O wydarzeniu:
Serial networkers Meetup - Wrocław!✅ 

Data: 6 marca 2026
Miejsce: Ace of Space Renoma, Świdnicka 40, Wrocław.
Czas: 16:00-21:00

Bilety: https://lnkd.in/drptwwBB

HR keeps buying what's easy to explain.

Quiz night? That one sells itself. It's cheap. Everyone joins in. No heavy lifting.

But try selling a simulation that shows which leaders choke, stall, or step up in real decisions.

Suddenly, it's too hard to pitch. The CFO gives you a blank stare.

So HR grabs the thing with the simple story. Entertainment wins. Real change loses.

Then they wonder why nothing sticks. Why leaders keep repeating the same mistakes.

The real blocker in corporate learning isn't a lack of ideas. It's a fear of anything that can't be explained in a single line.

If your solution is neat and fun, it lives.
If it reveals hard truths, it dies in the meeting room.

Real transformation isn't simple. The pitch shouldn't be either.

The CHRO wanted a succession plan.

I only asked one question:
Who on your team would you actually bet on?

Silence.

Not because they didn't know.
Because saying it out loud means facing the reality.

Most succession planning is corporate theater.
- Map names to boxes.
- Run assessments.
- Draft development plans.
Nothing happens.

The real questions never make the agenda:
- Who's truly ready?
- Who never will be?
- Who's here just because it's easy to keep them?

HR builds frameworks.
Leadership dodges decisions.

If your succession plan hasn't changed in six months,
 it's not a plan.
It's paperwork.

The best assessment I ever saw wasn't an assessment.

I used to roll my eyes at gamified anything. Always felt like a gimmick.

Then I watched a senior leadership team dive into a business simulation.

No assigned roles. No scripts. No "correct" answers.

Within an hour, everything flipped:

- The quiet one? Turned into the team's strategist. 
- The confident one? Tanked the business with reckless bets. 
- The supposed collaborator? Bulldozed every conversation.

They stopped performing. They just played.

That's when the real dynamics showed up.

You want to know how someone leads? 
Stop calling it an assessment.

Let them forget they're being watched. 
And see who actually shows up.

I watched 12 teams solve the same problem, with the same rules and the same time.

Not a single team did it the same way.

But some patterns stood out.

 Teams with one loud voice moved fast. They also got the worst results.

Teams that "wasted" time arguing every angle? They made fewer mistakes.

And when someone asked, "Wait, what are we optimizing for?", that team usually crushed the ones who just rolled up their sleeves and started working.

The kicker?
Teams that thought they nailed it weren't always the ones who actually did.

Especially under pressure, confidence and competence are two different signals.

If your team moves fast and sounds sure of themselves, you might want to check what they're actually delivering.

Sent hundreds of managers to leadership training.

Every feedback form was glowing.
"Eye-opening." "Very useful." "Will apply immediately."

But come Monday, nothing changed.

Took me years to see the gap.

Training tells you what good leadership looks like.
It never shows what your leadership actually is.

There's a world of difference between:
- Knowing you should listen more
- And watching yourself interrupt three people in a row when things get tight.

The first is advice.
The second is a mirror.

Most companies spend a fortune on advice.
Almost none bother with mirrors.

That's why so many "trained" managers never improve.

Most leadership teams think their collaboration is strong.

Surveys will back that up.

But watch them try to split a shrinking budget in real time.

That's where the truth shows up.

I once ran a survey for a leadership team. 90 percent rated their collaboration as strong or very strong.

Then I watched them actually work together.

It took 30 minutes for two people to bulldoze every decision. One person checked out completely. The rest held their ground but never moved the conversation forward.

Nobody lied on the survey. They honestly thought they were a high-performing team.

But self-perception is not data.

If you want to know how your team works, stop asking. Start watching.

Observed behavior is the only data that counts.

Everyone thinks they know how their team works.

They don't.

I've spent 25 years inside boardrooms, factory floors, crisis war rooms. Seen the same thing play out, everywhere.

What people say in surveys, workshops, performance reviews , irrelevant.

When the clock's ticking and stakes are real, most teams have no idea how they behave.

So I built something that shows them.

It's called QurumQ.

Not a training. Not a game.

A two-hour simulation that drags team behavior into the open. Real decisions, real pressure. No scripts, no right answers, no place to hide.

10 simulated years in 2 hours.
Physical cards. Digital engine. Electronic dice.
Crises, dilemmas, career moves, deals, betrayals. All of it.

Leadership appears or vanishes.
Risk-takers and risk-dodgers reveal themselves.
You see who actually listens, and who's just waiting to talk.

It's a mirror. Brutal, clear, unfiltered.

Suitable for offsite setting, fully online version for remote teams, multi-days marathon with short daily intervention and deepest level reflection.

I'm running beta sessions now. Looking for 10-15 companies in Europe ready to find out how their team really works under pressure.
Nice discounts guaranteed!

If you own team dynamics, decision-making, or leadership development, Id love to show you exactly what this simulation looks like. 
Scheduling link in a first comment. Or just DM me to agree for a demo.

A CFO once told me, "HR talks about people like they're a religion, not a business."

I was offended. For about ten seconds.

Then it clicked. He was right.

We say "talent is our greatest asset" but can't put a number on it.

We say "culture drives performance" but can't measure it.

We say "engagement matters" but never connect it to revenue.

Then we act shocked when we're left out of real decisions.

HR has a language problem. We preach. The business does math.

The answer isn't to ditch the human element. It's to translate it.

If you can't prove your work moves a number your CFO checks, you're not strategic. 
 You're just decoration.

A leadership team spent three months debating a senior hire.

In the end, they picked the safest candidate, someone exactly like them.

Here's what most leaders won't admit, even to themselves.

Hiring decisions expose what you actually value, not what you claim to value.

Every time someone gets labeled a "culture fit," take a closer look. Sometimes it's alignment. More often, it's just comfort.

You can paste values on the wall and talk about innovation, but the real test is in the room when a decision needs to be made.

Your hires are your culture.

Look at your last five. What did you really optimize for?

Be honest. That's the only way things change.

The worst team conflict is silent.

I've seen leadership teams who brag about "alignment." No debates. Quick decisions. Lots of nodding.

Looks smooth. Until you see the mess underneath.

Three strategies pulling in opposite directions. Secret alliances. One person overloaded while the rest jockey for status.

The show of harmony was just that, a show.

Healthy teams fight in the room, then walk out aligned. 
Dysfunctional teams nod in the room and undercut each other later.

If your meetings never get heated, don't kid yourself. That's not alignment.
 
That's avoidance.

Every meeting was polite. Every decision was unanimous.

And the company was slowly dying.

Here's the hard truth. If your leadership team never argues, you don't have trust. You have silence.

Real teams fight. They call out bad ideas before they turn into layoffs. They push each other, because they care more about the business than about looking agreeable.

When you see nothing but smiles and nods, it doesn't mean you've built a great team. It means the real issues are hiding in the hallway, whispered behind closed doors, or ignored until it's too late.

It's not complicated. People avoid conflict when they don't believe it's safe. That's how bad decisions get made, quarter after quarter, until there's nothing left to save.

If your leadership meetings feel comfortable, something important isn't being discussed.

I've sat in on dozens of teams tackling the same problem.

The outcome is set in the first three minutes.

Not by strategy. Not by intelligence. By something simpler.

Who asks a question before proposing a solution?

Teams that start with "What are we actually dealing with?" beat teams that start with "Here's what we should do." Every time.

The uncomfortable part? The teams that rush to solutions feel better. They look decisive. They act confident.

They just end up being wrong, more often than not.

Speed of decision is not quality of decision.

But put any team under pressure, and almost all of them confuse the two.

Retrospectives are everywhere.

But most are a waste of time.

People obsess over what went wrong, what could be improved, what the team should do next time.

Nobody asks the only question that matters: How did we actually make that decision in the first place?

Everyone remembers missing the deadline.
So they say, plan better next time.

But nobody rewinds to the meeting where someone flagged the risk, got ignored, and the group charged ahead.

The real mistake? The way the room made decisions. Not the plan itself.

By the time you get to the retrospective, everyone's already changed the story in their head.

You can't fix a process you never saw.

Stop asking what went wrong.

Start asking: what happened in the room when it mattered, and why did nobody stop a bad call in real time?

That's where the real answers are.

Creator & Host of What's Your Story Slam | Storyteller | Communications Coach | Applied Improvisation Facilitator

Great ideas don't win. Great storytellers do. I learned that the hard way.

I spent 15 years in banking, thinking my work would speak for itself. It didn't.

One cringe-worthy speaker training left me dreading every presentation. The cost? Years of silence. Ideas buried. Promotions that never came.

So I quit.

Moved to South America. Learned tango. Found improv. Discovered something that changed everything: Confidence isn't about polish. It's about presence.

Back in Singapore, I created What's Your Story Slam—turning analytical minds into unforgettable speakers through storytelling and improv.

The response was overwhelming. People didn't just want a mic. They wanted transformation.

So I built communities around it: 
🎭 Grace Under Fire — for professionals practising presence under pressure through improv. 
🎤 What's Your Story Slam — Singapore's #1 live storytelling show, a home for leaders learning to speak with power, not perfection.

Today, I help leaders, founders, and executives own the room—onstage, online, and in every high-stakes conversation. I combine storytelling structure with improv training and performance coaching to help you become unmissable.

WHAT I OFFER:

🎯 Grace Under Fire – For leaders who freeze under pressure. 
🌱 Seed to Stage – For executives who want to influence through narrative. 
💬 1:1 Coaching – For anyone ready to stop playing small.

Since launching WYSS, I've helped: 
✅ A founder raised US$200M through story-driven pitching. 
✅ Senior leaders land board seats with compelling narratives. 
✅ 300+ professionals speak with clarity under pressure.

📩 Ready to show up and speak up? DM me 'WORKSHOPS' to join the next one.

Anna Ong

This birthday has surprised me.

Yes, there was an unexpected moment of recognition that landed quietly (I’ll share the link in the comments).
What stayed with me more was what followed.

Messages, voice notes, and DMs from friends near and far. Gentle check-ins that said, “I see you.”

And I got to spend it with my favourite people in Singapore.

Ten years ago, birthdays meant big brunches and loud dinners — three or four conversations happening at once. Lots of noise. Lots of motion.

Back then, I planned my birthdays.

Now, my friends plan them for me.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped performing celebration and learned how to receive it.

Smaller gatherings. Deeper conversations. People I’ve known for years — some for over a decade.

I’ve never been someone who looks forward to birthdays. This year, friends gently insisted.

And instead of resisting it, I let myself receive it.

When you stop performing certainty and having it all together, people don’t just respect you — they start to trust you.

On the eve of Lunar New Year, this feels like the right note to end one cycle and step into the next.

I feel very loved. Very seen. Very grateful.

What changed for you when you allowed yourself to start receiving?

#whatsyourstory #storytelling

From Banker to Stage: I Help Leaders Command Any Room Through Storytelling + Improv | Creator, Grace Under Fire Workshop | Host, What’s Your Story Slam, Singapore’s #1 Storytelling Show

I got home from a show last night — tired, an hour before my birthday — when I got a ping from my friend Juliana Chan, PhD.

"Check out the Singapore Female list."

Curious, I clicked.

I smiled when I saw Juliana at the top. As I was typing, "Well done — so happy for you", I noticed my own name.

A quiet, unexpected birthday gift. 🤯 

So I wrote back: 
"Oh wow — I'm on it. Here's to us."

Moments like this usually pull people deeper into the numbers.

For me, they clarified something else.

I don't write for the algorithm. I write for the quiet reader — the one who's reading closely, even if you never see their name in the comments.

What struck me about this list wasn't the number, but that it's framed as an authenticity rating.

It suggests what's rewarded isn't optimisation, but consistency. 

Not louder. Intentional.

I finally said yes to something I’d wanted to do for years: moderating a panel instead of speaking on one.

Because the most interesting part of any panel isn’t the individual expertise — it’s what happens between the experts.

Moderating, to me, feels like orchestration. Listening deeply, building on ideas, and creating the conditions for insights to emerge in real time. When it’s done well, a panel stops feeling like a Q&A and starts feeling like a conversation.

The best ones feel like you’ve been quietly invited into a great dinner table — smart women, real banter, and ideas connecting in unexpected ways.

For a long time, I was invited to sit on panels as a subject matter expert. Rarely to moderate them. So when Yvonne Siow invited me to moderate PlayPan - Play For Good's International Women’s Day panel this year, I didn’t hesitate.

I’m excited, a little nervous, and genuinely in awe of the women I’ll be sharing the floor with — all doing meaningful work in the impact space.

The theme is Give to Gain.

If you’d like to listen in and be part of the conversation, I’d love to see you there.
👉 https://lnkd.in/g8vmNq8n

P.S. Do you prefer listening to panels — or being part of the conversation?

I turned a year wiser yesterday.

And today, this landed — unexpectedly.

This birthday hasn’t felt big or loud.
It’s felt like a gentle shower of love and attention.
Notes. Messages. Quiet check-ins. And now this.

I’m genuinely grateful.

Not just for the feature, but for the reminder that the conversations, the rooms, the stories — they matter to people beyond what we can see or measure.

Sometimes you don’t realise you’ve been heard until it comes back to you like this.

Thank you to everyone who’s been part of the journey, the dialogue, and the shared moments along the way. I feel very seen — and very grateful.

https://lnkd.in/gMprYb7h?

The problem isn’t that you don’t have a good origin story.
It’s that you’re telling the same one to everyone.

I’m preparing for a storytelling workshop tomorrow, and I can’t stop thinking about this.

When people ask for my origin story, I usually tell the clean version:

Banking → storytelling → entrepreneurship in Singapore.

It’s neat. It makes sense. It fits LinkedIn.

But that’s only one origin.

There’s also:
- The girl from Manila who moved countries.
- The INSEAD MBA who entered global rooms.
- The banker who learned to read power structures.
- The daughter of a traditional Chinese family who decided to break convention.

Each of those is an origin story.

Each explains a different part of who I am.

Each would land differently depending on who’s listening.

That’s what we forget as leaders and founders.

An origin story isn’t about chronology.
It’s about relevance.

The question isn’t:

“What’s my origin story?”

It’s:
“Which origin helps this audience understand me best?”

We don’t have one beginning.

We have several doors into the same house.

Which one are you opening?

#whatsyourstory #storytelling

The hidden price of invisibility.

Everyone tells you to “be visible.”
But they rarely mention the hidden cost of being visible in the wrong places.

In leadership, invisibility is rarely neutral.
Decisions still get made. Narratives still form. Opportunities still move — just not with you in the room.

Early on, I tried to be everywhere.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, industry spaces — spreading myself thin trying to be seen.

Then I realised something uncomfortable:
My people weren’t everywhere.

So I chose invisibility in some places, so I could choose visibility where it actually mattered.

My biggest supporters didn’t come from friends.
They came from people paying attention in the right room.

Visibility isn’t about volume.
It’s about placement.

Invisibility can feel like humility.
But when it’s unintentional, it’s often just expensive.

P.S. If someone told you to “be more visible” tomorrow, would you know where that visibility needs to happen?

Lunar New Year creates a natural pause.
A moment to take stock of what worked, what didn’t, and what no longer deserves energy.

I realised I hadn’t fully closed the last year — even with all the tools I teach and use.

LinkedIn has been good to me — through the conversations, the quiet followers, and the people who’ve been here consistently without needing to be loud.

So as a Lunar New Year gift, I’m sharing something we created with care.

Attached is our Year-in-Review & Vision Workbook for 2026, designed to help you:
– reflect on the year you’ve just lived
– clarify priorities for the year ahead
– and consciously decide what to carry forward — and what to leave behind

It includes structured reflection prompts, simple goal-setting frameworks, and a dedicated “letting go” page that most people skip — but shouldn’t.

We originally designed this for our Women in Business community, but the work felt universal, so I’m sharing it here openly.

Beautifully designed by Morris KUO, my long-time collaborator, because tools like this should feel as good to use as they are useful.

No download. No gate.
Just swipe, save, and use.

If you’ve been following quietly, this one’s for you.
P.S. What’s one thing you’re choosing to move towards this year?

taplio

The Battle

Mikhail Lvovskii

Anna Ong

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Performance ScoreAnna Ong's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Mikhail Lvovskii

Anna Ong

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mikhail Lvovskii's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAnna Ong's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMikhail Lvovskii's LinkedIn Performance