ABOUT US
ÅSA FANELLI
FOUNDER AND CHIEF STRATEGIST
Åsa is the Founder and Chief Strategist at IdeaLift Group, a boutique strategic consulting firm specializing in leadership development, board governance and strategic planning. She believes in a team approach and brings in other
consultants and teachers for the many different consulting engagements and leadership trainings.
Åsa's passion is to support the growth of more effective, compassionate leaders and collaborative and engaged teams to increase overall performance and wellbeing in
life and at work. Åsa has over 25 years of leadership experience in the global corporate and nonprofit sectors, having led diverse teams in 35 countries across 5 continents, in highly competitive and complex work environments. Using the most current scientific and evidence-based practices of mindfulness, emotional intelligence and resilience, Åsa offers transformational and innovative trainings, keynotes and consulting engagements to help leaders and organizations develop the capacity to effectively adapt to change, deal more skillfully with difficult emotions, boost creative problem solving, and improve psychological safety and employee engagement.
Prior to starting IdeaLift Group, she served as CEO and President of the Boston-based nonprofit Horizons for Homeless Children. Åsa started her career with EF Education in Rome, Italy and later moved to Boston as President of EF High School Exchange Year. While at EF, she also served as head of North American Human Resources and Talent Management, overseeing the global cross-company leadership development program in EF offices worldwide. Åsa has a Bachelor degree in Human Resources Management and Economics from University of Stockholm. She is a Swedish citizen who grew up in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Åsa is a Certified Teacher for Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a Journey Meditation Teacher and a has completed BoardSource Certificates in Nonprofit Board Governance and Nonprofit Consulting. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Boston Club and the Newton Health and Human Services Advisory Board. Åsa also serves on the Board of Trustess of the Epiphany School and volunteers once a week at in the Infant and Toddler classrooms at the Early Learning Center.
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OUR PURPOSE
The purpose of our work is to support the transformation of leaders and organizations to flourish from the inside out. We work with you to effectively adapt to change, unlock your full potential, create a culture of trust, compassion and belonging - leading to increased performance, creativity and overall wellbeing.
OUR APPROACH
We believe change is a team effort
As consultants, we ask a lot of questions. We listen and we analyze and research data - and we customize our work to fit your needs. We assess your strengths and gaps and our commitment is to make you succeed. We avoid cliché consultant language and aim for our advice to be practical. We are collaborative and once we build client relationships, your team is our team.
We make you work hard and we tell it like it is. We have fun while we work – and we laugh a lot with our clients. We want to help you discover and pursue your biggest dreams.
We have walked in your shoes.
We are social innovators, experienced corporate and nonprofit executives and passionate philanthropists. We know you have a lot on your plate. We have served as leaders, board members and founders in a wide range of organizations in the nonprofit, public and private sectors. We leverage our skills, experience and infectious passion to strategically support the team when extra leadership bandwidth is needed within the organization. We are catalysts for change - but we are also realistic, finding solutions that are applicable to the day-to-day realities of what you are trying to accomplish, both as staff and board members - we get it.
We leave the wisdom at the table.
Our goal is to help you achieve your goals. We analyze the current state of your organization, focus on the most critical initiatives, find new creative solutions to your challenges. We pride ourselves in our ability to facilitate sensitive conversations and get your team to work together when you are too busy putting out fires. Together, we can help you find the answers to the questions that inform decision making and strategic direction. In the end, your success will hinge on your ability to do it yourself. Therefore, we follow the campfire rule - we leave things better than we found them.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
We have the experience and the practical know-how to help you figure things out. We use data, best practices and business models that organizations can benefit from. We’ll help you implement systems and processes based on your needs and budget. We are well connected and aligned with the best in the sector and the region, and know who to bring on board as additional experts to augment our team when we need to drill even deeper within a focus area. We carefully construct the right team to work with you to customize the work and to illuminate key organizational insights, inform strategy, solve problems, develop capable leaders and create a culture that fuels success.
Food for Thought
"Daring leaders how live into their values are never silent about hard things" - Brene Brown
“Not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin
Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again - Nelson Mandela
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman
“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” – Pico Iyer
"You can't get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability" - Brene Brown
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” - Marcus Aurelius
" I like living. I have been widely, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know that just be alive is a grand thing" - Agatha Christie
“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” - Seneca
"But feelings can't be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem." - Anne Frank
"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them" - Oscar Wilde
"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style" - Maya Angelou
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle" - Albert Einstein
"Mindfulness allows you to develop a broad set of cognitive and executive functions, raises self-awareness levels and facilitates emotional regulation, empowering individuals to substitute knee-jerk reactions with more conscious and ultimately more efficient behavior” - Harvard Business Review