Whether we accept it or not, the ugly truth is that we are all stuck at some point – stuck in our perceptions, our beliefs and in business strategies that no matter what you do, do not deliver the desired results.
Executive Confidant support combines the art of coaching, mentoring and advisory, with exceptional strategic thinking skills and decades of global executive experience. With this mix, the Executive Confidant support becomes an effective way for any manager and executive to overcome a particular stuck state.
Overcoming your particular stuck state is a journey lasting from two months to a year, sometimes even longer. The aim of the journey is to broaden your thinking and to provide you with practical tools that help to resolve your ongoing obstacles. Tools, that come from globally experienced successful executive. To achieve this goal I will be there all in one, as your confidant, mentor, advisor, guide, coach, mirror and challenger.
Change can be scary. I am there to make it safe. It will be judgment-free journey with collaborative & open dialogue
Step-by-step, you will discover valuable insights that broaden your thinking and improve your self awareness, helping you to overcome your stuck state permanently
To liberate your stuck state, practical tools from globally experienced executives will be shared and executed
With over 20+ years of successful international executive career, Mae resonates first-hand with leaders and managers and their stuck states. Prior to becoming an executive confidant, she built her corporate career on two continents and four distinct countries. Mae is a true challenger who has planned, built and executed successful strategies, as well as business turnarounds, in retail, banking and the startup world.
Her corporate career kicked off in the US while studying Business Administration (State University of New York) and later Finance (Monmouth University). She started with gathering and sharing valuable insights as an intern at Merrill Lynch and proceeded as a business analyst at Byrne Investment Research Inc. After returning to Europe, Mae stepped into banking and worked at Danske Bank for close to decade. Starting in Estonia, in the later years she moved to Denmark, working directly with the group’s Executive Board helping to build and execute strategies across 15 EU markets.
After that banking decade, Mae dedicated time to supporting development of the Estonian financial market and served as Supervisory Board Advisor and Chairwoman for companies across Europe (e.g. OpusCapita, Estonian Cooperative Bank). While being a partner in a consulting boutique, she gathered innovation insights and shared her strategic expertise as co-founder, mentor and interim manager to startups and small-to-large corporates across Europe (incl. Funderbeam, Match-Maker Ventures, Upgraded and Daimler Financial Services). In her latest corporate endeavour, Mae saved a stock-listed fashion retail company, Baltika AS, from bankruptcy.
Mae is certified and recognition earned executive confidant who has improved the skills of managers and executives across Europe since 2015. She serves as President of the Vienna University of Economics and Business WU Executive Academy Advisory Board.
Mae has a unique cultural understanding, having lived, studied and worked on three continents and seven distinct markets (Austria, USA, Estonia, Denmark, India, China, Russia). She graduated with a Global Executive MBA double degree from Vienna University of Economics and Business / Carlson School of Management in 2013.
Born and raised in Estonia. At the age of 18, grabbed a suitcase and went to the US to broaden my thinking and to acquire a university education. Had no idea how I’d pay for it. Had only my strong will and clear goal. As it later turned out, that was more than sufficient.
This strong will has followed me my entire life and helped to build an international executive career. A desire to always broaden my thinking has taken me to live, work and study on three continents and seven countries (Estonia, US, Denmark, Austria, India, China, Russia). Now I have finally settled down and live as a modern family, where each one of us holds different passports – my husband is Austrian, my son was born in the US and I am Estonian.
My colleagues, clients and friends describe me as an honest, open-minded, always optimistic, warm and supportive person. People tend to feel safe around me; safe to share, to confide and to be who they are. Yet, I’m far from flawless. If there was a support group for perfectionists and workaholics, I’d still be attending.
Am always burning with a deep passion to support others. That’s why I never truly mastered the art of delegation, even in my executive decades. Whenever a teammate called for help, there I was, ready to listen and help. After many years in a global executive career, I finally realized that committing fully to helping others solve their stuck states is my true calling. It’s a calling that I have unconsciously enjoyed my entire career.
I resonate well with what it’s like to be stuck as leader. It’s this lost feeling – something is off and you are not sure where to even start to get on the right track, or even what the right track looks like. I’ve been there more than once. The biggest mistake made in different stuck states was to engage too many different third parties, each with their promise – coach, mentor, advisor, consultant. All I really needed was one person who could support with competencies from all these roles. And, while I couldn’t find such person myself as an executive, I decided to combine my personal strengths and to create a new profession that offers such support to leaders as an Executive Confidant. Support that combines coaching, mentoring and strategy skills, which come from decades of executive experience!
Executive Confidant is an highly competent and experienced support structure for executives and managers. It combines decades of executive experience with strong strategy, coaching and mentoring skills. It is your partner at eye level!
The ugly truth of leadership is, that the higher up you climb, the more alone you are. The belief of having a team to confide in remains a myth, because it has an inherited conflict.
Great leader is someone people look up to and idealise. People who join your team, want to and need to look up to you to remain motivated. Confiding too often your challenges and indecisiveness in difficult situations undermines that same role and makes you less of an idol. It doesn’t matter that you are also human, what your team and organisation needs is an iron wo/man – leader who knows what s/he is doing and how to handle every obstacle.
This loneliness on the top will quickly become the source of unnecessary mistakes. Mistakes, that can be avoided by having an equal parter to confide in and to solve the ongoing obstacles with.
