"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Work with me to come unstuck. To grow. To come alive.
Do. It.
SINGLE + ONGOING SESSIONS + WORKSHOPS
Startup advisory & business coaching
Perfect for: entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs and senior leaders/managers of early stage startups and business owners and senior leaders/managers of new to mature small and medium businesses.
Foundation building sessions
I'VE HELPED TO BUILD FOUNDATIONS FOR GROWTH BEFORE. WORKING WITH YOU, WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER.
Whether everything is new and needs to be built from scratch or you're an established business needing new foundations for growth to help get unstuck -- a new perspective, second pair of eyes and another experienced mind to partner with will get you places you never imagined.
IS THIS YOU?
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You need to hire your first employees but don't know who you need or how to go about figuring it out. I've been here before and had to build new teams from scratch. I coach people to hire what I call "athletes".
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You have a bunch of great employees...now you need to build a leadership team around you. Building and operating a successful leadership group is one of the strongest functions you can adopt early. I've been here before and implemented effective leadership and org health models.
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You know what needs to get done...it's a long, overwhelming list! You need to be more purposeful around objectives, measuring progress and executing as well as ensuring alignment across your teams. I've been here before and implemented execution models used by some of the world's mosts successful organizations.
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You're growing fast and cracks are starting to show. You need to move from simply enduring to optimizing for scale. But it's not simple to build the aeroplane while you're flying it (as I used to tell my teams!) I've been here before. Most recently, building out a global Customer Success team that experienced 40x growth over 3 years, reinforcing that the earlier you plan for scale the less work you need to redo in the future.
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You're an established business that wants to adapt a startup mentality - become more disruptive, innovative, daring. Empower your people to imagine and invent. I can help you define strategies and develop capabilities to deliver this.
Manager leadership foundations
I BELIEVE MANAGERS ARE THE SECRET SUACE FOR SUCCESS IN A GROWING BUSINESS. YET VERY LITTLE INVESTMENT IS MADE IN DEVELOPING THEM. WE CAN CHANGE THAT.
It's very typical in a growing startup or small business to see first time managers. Typically hired as an individual contributor to do a job, it soon becomes more work than one person can handle, and so they're asked to hire someone just like them to help. Before long, they have a team of 4 or 5 and have become a de-facto people manager - whether they wanted to or not!
IS THIS YOU?
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You're the CEO or a senior leader and have seen many of your best performers move in to people management roles - where suddenly their stress level goes up and output goes down.
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You were hired to do a specific job and now find yourself managing a team of people doing that same job. Yet nothing much has changed for you...you still feel like you're trying to do the work and understand what it means to manage the team.
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You continue to add more and more people managers to your business, yet there's no real connection amongst them as a "manager community".
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You've found yourself managing a remote team and...well frankly...it's hard and you could do with some advice.
I've built and managed a number of teams over the years - from small teams in a physical office to global remote teams. I've developed new managers and designed onboarding programs for managers. Let's start your managers off with solid foundations.
Advisory board member / Non-executive director
FOR A MORE FORMAL COMMITMENT WITH GROWING BUSINESSES IN CERTAIN NICHES WHICH CAN BENEFIT FROM THE SKILLSETS OR EXPERIENCE I CAN OFFER.
I feel extremely fortunate to have had Clayton for this part of our journey: the initial foundational years of Auth0. Clayton is a foundations builder, on top of which many things stand which we take for granted today.
I’m happy and honored to have worked with Clayton during these years. It feels much longer than that actually, it feels I've known him for a lifetime. Clayton, thanks for setting us in the right direction.
EUGENIO PACE, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, AUTH0
SINGLE + ONGOING SESSIONS + WORKSHOPS
Organizational culture and health
Perfect for: entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs and senior leaders/managers of early-mid stage startups and business owners and senior leaders/managers of new to mature small and medium businesses.
Creating clarity
CONFUSION AND MISALIGNMENT BOGS DOWN EXECUTION IN FAST GROWING COMPANIES
It starts with the leadership team then trickles down the organization, creating wasted effort and time. I help leadership teams create a playbook which answers six critical questions and provides the clarity required to maintain strong organizational health and move faster than your competition. My methodology and practices are adapted from the organizational health frameworks developed by Patrick Lencioni.
IS THIS YOU?
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Your leadership team struggles to agree on what's most important right now.
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Your employees express frustration at the mixed signals coming from leadership and, in turn, you're frustrated that your teams don't seem to work together effectively.
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There's a hollowness across your organization around the sense of "why". Why do you do what you do? What does your company stand for? How do you go about doing things? What makes your company different?
Translating values to culture
VALUES MUST BE MORE THAN PRETTY STATEMENTS FRAMED ON THE WALL & CULTURE IS NOT SIMPLY PING-PONG TABLES AND FREE SNACKS
Values and culture should be inextricably linked - if they're not, something's broken. Culture is a result of acting out the company's values. The two come together to drive behaviours that make it clear "how things are done around here". Too often, values and behaviours are in conflict with each other and this undermines company culture and, ultimately, successful growth.
IS THIS YOU?
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Your company values smell generic and stale -- they could be any company's values. They contain words and phrases like "passion", "innovation", "customer focussed", "market leader". Boring, forgettable and, most importantly, probably not a true reflection of the company you want to build. Be more daring. Be more you.
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Most people in your company don't know what the values are because they're not "acted out" and reinforced in everyday behaviours. I.e. they are meaningless to most.
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As a CEO or founder, you know there's conflict between your values and your reality. I.e. you have a value of "customer focussed" yet your CSAT metrics suck. Or your value of "strength in diversity" isn't reflected by your homogenous team. Customers and new hires catch on quickly to this and will see you don't stand for much. Fix it.
I've worked with founders and CEOs to establish meaningful company values and weave them through everyday behaviours to build and nurture effective company culture. I've led company culture at a US$1B startup that's continually recognized as one of the best places to work.
Remote employee engagement
I'M A BIG BELIEVER THAT WORK IS A THING YOU DO, NOT A PLACE YOU GO.
Technology has empowered companies to hire the best people, no matter where they're based. Done well, a highly distributed workforce can provide many advantages to a fast growing startup. Done poorly, it can cause all sorts of problems both to your organization and to an employee's personal wellbeing. Fostering a healthy remote culture takes deliberate effort. In fact, I hate the term "remote culture". I coach companies to build a "relationship culture".
IS THIS YOU?
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Your idea of "remote work" is to give remote employees access to email and Slack and then, you know, they'll be right! But they're not.
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There's very little sense of "team" amongst your remote employees. Meaningful relationships are lacking.
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You've sensed an "us versus them" mentality forming between employees who are office bound and employees who are remote.
I've led company culture at a US$1B startup with 500 employees, half of which worked remotely. I built onboarding, engagement and recognition programs and championed the concept of a "relationship culture" resulting in recognition as one of the best places to work.
Having been on both sides of the fence and walked in the same shows as many of those he works with, his insight, experience and knowledge is second to none.
ZAUN BHANA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, LEAP CONSULTING
Perfect for: entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs looking for a third party to host / facilitate / speak at meetings, functions, company offsites etc and who has an understanding and experience of the journey you and your employees are on.
Event MC / Facilitation / Speaker
SINGLE SESSIONS + WORKSHOPS
Master of Ceremonies
I HAVE EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE BEING MC AND INVOLVED IN THE PRODUCTION AT CORPORATE AND PRIVATE EVENTS
As an MC, my motto is simply "the show must go on". I go beyond just stage-presence, ensuring your speakers are prepped and on-time, working with your production crew to ensure production elements are on cue and the event kept to schedule and creating content to engage and include your audience. I can tailor my MC delivery to suit your event or function - from being a story teller to matter of fact, light-hearted to heart-felt.
Master of Content
RUNNING A COMPANY MEETING OR OFFSITE IS EXPENSIVE. BUILDING A THEME, AGENDA AND CONTENT IS OFTEN DONE LAST MINUTE AND MISSES THE MARK. DON'T DO THAT!
I've owned company offsites at a US$1B startup. I know what it takes to do it successfully, to make it memorable and impactful for your employees - to make the event somewhat of a cultural icon for your company and something your investors will see as indispensable. I can help you form a theme and agenda, assist in the production of content and messaging for your event and give input in to how to make it a kick-ass event. I can even come along and MC.
Speaker
I'VE SPOKEN AT MANY EVENTS AS A KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT.
From national Microsoft conferences with audiences of thousands to small intimate industry events. Contact me for my current speaking topics (hint: they are currently focussed around startups, personal and professional growth and company culture and can be tweaked to suit your audience).
Clayton was highly creative. He was a great speaker and always kept his audiences highly engaged and entertained.
SAM ZAMMIT, SMB LEAD, MICROSOFT
SINGLE + ONGOING SESSIONS + WORKSHOPS
Creative / Content
Perfect for: entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, marketers and sales leaders looking to collaborate for some creative inspiration.
Creative / Content Development
I HAVE A KNACK FOR BEING CREATIVE - IN A DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIVE WAY. NOT EVERYONE DOES. PUTTING OUR HEADS TOGETHER WE CAN COME UP WITH SOME AMAZING OUTSIDE THE BOX CREATIVE FOR YOUR NEXT MARKETING / SALES / BRANDING INITIATIVE.
Once, I was behind a marketing campaign that was a first of its kind in Australia, winning an Australian Direct Marketing Association award. I've created a program and branding that became adopted as best practice at subsidiaries around the world of a global corporation. I've produced creative and engaging openings and content at events. Throughout my career I've done all the "personality strength test" type things: Myer-Briggs; Gallup Strengths Finder; ProfileXT; Discovery Insights; etc -- they all indicate creativity as a main strength. It's also one of my most enjoyable pursuits!
I always say that Clayton is one of my favourite people - He has such passion and energy.
Clayton did a fantastic job to create new, creative ways to tell our story. He is one of the best public speakers I have seen in a long time. I would recommend Clayton to any role that would give him the opportunity to showcase his passion and creativity to the maximum.
ISABEL BONIFACE, SMB MARKETING LEAD, MICROSOFT
SINGLE + ONGOING SESSIONS
Personal Coaching
Perfect for: Individuals looking to move from corporate to startup life; individuals already at an early stage startup.
Battling imposter syndrome
IT'S MORE COMMON THAN YOU THINK, BUT NOT TALKED ABOUT OFTEN.
I opened up about it during my startup journey. This wasn't the first time I'd felt imposter syndrome. There are so many things to spend your energy on at a fast growing company -- doubting yourself shouldn't be one of them. I can help you with strategies and advice to keep your imposter syndrome in check.
Taking a leap of faith
WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, DO YOU INSTINCTIVELY SAY YES? OR NO? CHANGING JOBS, MOVING CITIES OR EVEN COUNTRIES ISN'T EASY. I'VE DONE IT MANY TIMES AND CAN HELP YOU WORK THROUGH THE PROCESS.
In the past five years I've moved across the world twice with my wife and two kids. In the ten years prior, I moved cities four times. I've learned a lot about the importance of taking opportunities and rewards it can offer. And also about having support and doing what's right for your family. Speaking to others who had done it was pivotal in giving me the confidence -- I can offer that to you.