Caitlin is serious about the work, unserious about the rules.
Right-hand to CEOs and CXOs, the millennial powerhouse is shaping the next generation of leaders and building companies that give a shit care.
About
I'm a multidisciplinary leader who is taking years SPENT inside boardrooms and at leadership tables and disrupting the system from the inside out. Thoughtful decision making. Recentreing community and connection. People with the hope and agency to live a visceral life.
a bleeding heart and perpetually existential thinker who writes about grief, shame, euphoria, the whole human gamut. People tell me how they really feel because they know I am too aware of my flaws to make you feel smaller for yours. That’s what’s missing from leadership sounding boards. Space for genuine candor, humility and non-performative vulnerability.
My ability to blend deep strategic thinking, a muscle for getting things done and highly intuitive leadership is what has put my career on rocket fuel. I have held multiple CXO positions, spent years inside Boardrooms, risen quickly at consulting Accenture & Deloitte, and worked alongside some of the most thoughtful and impactful leaders across the globe.
Now co-founder of Meus Studios, founder of Topple and yapping and rambling all over substack, our pod (Existential Thread) and youtube - I’m weaving all of this together as part of building and living a portfolio life.
If any of this lights a little fire, I’d love to hear from you.
“I could never be just one thing. Now I get to build a portfolio and a life that reflects that.”
FOR WAYS TO WORK AND CONNECT WITH CAITLIN, CHECK OUT HER PORTFOLIO BELOW.
The world needs more leaders that believe business can be better.
Topple is a Leadership Development & Board Services company shaping the next generation of Founder, CEOs and Board Members from the inside out. Intentional leaders making care-centred decisions have the power to reshape the way people experience work. How people experience work has a flow on effect to how they move through society as a whole. Less individual surviving, more collective care. That’s how we disrupt the system. That’s when all boats start to rise.
TOPPLE
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You’ve poured every scrap of your being into building something visceral as hell. Your values seep into every part of your product but in an effort to grow you start to slowly but surely chip away at the soul of the thing. Not in product features, but in the way you lead, the way your company operates. You were told that’s what it takes to scale a business. That the people with the wallet know best.
Too many starts up and scales up don’t make it because Founders/CEOs didn’t have the right advice and support system in place - overindexing on advice from investors with misaligned incentives, succumbing to the decisions that don’t uphold the values or the vision, or not having the relationships in place where people can tell you what they really see.
Exposed by what they don’t know yet, creating an intentional system of sounding boards that allow you to embed your values and vision into your decision making structures is so fucking important. And it is possible.
The gap might be in your Board (upward), your leadership team (downward) or perhaps you have your own blind spots (inward). It's thinking about each of these disparate parts as an ecosystem. One that allows you to build your decision making confidence while also holding up a mirror to you.
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Too many starts up and scales up don’t make it because Founders/CEOs didn’t have the right advice and support system in place - overindexing on advice from investors with misaligned incentives, succumbing to the decisions that don’t uphold the values or the vision, or not having the relationships in place where people can tell you what they really see.
Exposed by what they don’t know yet, creating an intentional system of sounding boards that allow you to embed your values and vision into your decision making structures is so so critical.
The gap might be in your Board (upward), your leadership team (downward) or perhaps you have your own blind spots (inward). It's thinking about each of these disparate parts as an ecosystem. One that allows you to build your decision making confidence while also holding up a mirror to you.
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The world needs more leaders that believe that business can be better. How decisions are made inside Boardrooms & deal rooms trickles down across the entire company (and frankly, across the entire start up/scale up ecosystem). If we can change the criteria for a good decision at the top, we can start to topple the system from the inside out.
This is the antidote to growth at all costs. Because people can’t keep being the cost.
That means centreing the human impact, pursuing sustainable growth and giving leaders the support to build differently. The data is endless - deliberately developmental and purpose-driven companies are a win-win. We just need people at the top willing to get it wrong, in the pursuit of getting it right. The safe choice feels good in the moment, but it doesn’t feel so good at 2am.
All of the places you gather matters, and how connection is fostered there matters too.
Meus Studios is an experience design and connection studio re-centreing community and connection. With an endless curiosity for the human experience, Meus Co Founders Chantelle and Caitlin, create and shape the conditions for more genuine and meaningful relationships and experiences - IRL and Online.
MEUS STUDIOS
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We’re experience design partners who not only help you to create experiences that change your clients’ lives but we make sure you are resourced too. Partner with us to ensure your vision and value translates into your peoples’ experience.
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We work with brands and organisations to create more meaningful connection experiences for their communities. Think less transactional and more value.
Events that don’t just look good on socials but are felt and remembered long after the day is gone.
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IRL experiences for curious people that crave conversations that tickle your brain and encourage play. All while being equally grounded in empathy and intellect.
“Caitlin can hear an idea, a vision, or a thought, and instantly see a bigger version of it.”
— Founder, Investor & Activist
“This is by far one of the most insightful and probing conversations I have had all year.”
— podcast host