Testimonials

"Our multiple family office has successfully partnered with Apheno Advisory since 2012 to achieve breakthroughs for both our portfolio companies and our own leadership team. Their skillful approach to conscious leadership catalyzes individual leaders and teams to rapidly develop themselves so they can have higher impact and better navigate complex change in the era of disruption. We wholeheartedly recommend engaging them if you want a trusted advisor, a brilliant thought leader, and an accomplished development partner.”

— Dr. Mariana Bozesan, Founder, AQAL AG and AQAL Capital
— Tom Schulz, CEO and Founder, AQAL AG and AQAL Capital

“Barrett is a dynamic and skillful coach, teacher, and facilitator for leaders facing fast-paced, complex challenges. He has an innate capacity to connect and provide wise, compassionate support. For years, he and his team have significantly helped me, multiple senior teams, and numerous executives in our organization as we address complex global issues.”

— Mike Tetreault, Chief People Officer, The Nature Conservancy

"Apheno Advisory, led by Barrett C. Brown, offers a unique combination of deep knowledge, expertise, thoughtful design, effective facilitation, and caring heart that come together to provide exceptional value. I've collaborated with them on a variety of projects over the past 10+ years and appreciate their consistent ability to develop leaders, executive teams, and whole organizations. Their future-focus orientation helps leaders anticipate the moves required now in order to thrive in increasingly complex environments. I highly recommend working with Apheno Advisory."

— Adam Leonard, Leadership & Organization Development, Google

“Over the last five years of working with Barrett, I’ve moved from originally managing the complexity of Africa to then taking on Europe, India, Asia Pacific and Latin America, to now overseeing all global regions and all global strategies.  The complexity of the work in these rapidly changing regions has required me to develop new skills and new ways of thinking to manage a diverse group of people and challenges. Barrett has been a guide and a teacher along the way helping me approach the web of interactions with new perspectives and tools. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him, and I think that together we are doing our small part to make the world a better place.”

— David Banks, Chief Conservation Officer, The Nature Conservancy

“The coaching I received from Apheno Advisory provided powerful support that guided me to identify the mental models looming as barriers to my effectiveness. Seeing in new ways has enabled me to shift behaviors in ways clearly visible to my most important stakeholders.”

— Amy Hartman, Senior Manager, Human Investment Group, Credit Human

“For any one wrestling with the challenges and paradoxes of advancing complex initiatives, I can’t recommend Apheno Advisory more highly for a coach, mentor or trainer.  My coach helped me slow down and step back and encouraged me to fully own who I am in my career and my life. I have become much more keenly aware of who I am, my unique strengths and how I can best contribute. Equally important I have become much more forgiving of my many faults and weaknesses, and learned to love them more as an integral part of who I am. I am less afraid to shine by just being me. Confident that as my own small ripples join others we are making bigger waves in building a better and brighter tomorrow. I can’t thank my coach enough for his support and encouragement and feel I have found a fellow traveler and a friend for life.”

— Justin Adams, Director - Tropical Forest Alliance, The World Economic Forum

“I have worked with Barrett for around 10 years. He is at the leading edge of work in the development of advanced mental, emotional and relational capacities. What I experience with him is state of the art thinking and experience. He constantly amazes and challenges me with new concepts, ideas and ways of thinking about things. In my view, he is a key opinion former in this type of work for leaders. I have worked with him in two capacities, one as coach of leaders and secondly in the sustainability arena. He brings leading edge thinking and challenge in both spheres of his work. I cannot recommend him enough.”

— Neela Bettridge, Director of Neela Bettridge, Ltd

“Barrett has a rare combination of talents, gifts, and capacities that provide an extraordinary foundation for conceptualizing large-scale, complex macro-level issues and challenges, while simultaneously being able to step them down into detailed nuances and features at micro levels of engagement.  He is a positive force in any team environment, bringing grace, humor, creativity, and clear self awareness to bear in support of sustained levels of high performance. Barrett deserves my highest recommendation...his potential is limitless.”

— John D. Schmidt, President & CEO, Avastone Consulting

“As a global conservation organization we have had to stretch ourselves again and again to rise to new and urgent challenges, by deploying cutting edge strategies and thinking in science, technology and financial innovation. As one of the organization’s leaders, I have also seen the need to stretch myself, to rise to the challenge of being their leader in an increasingly rapidly changing and complex environment. Barrett has helped me develop my mental, emotional and relational capacities into leadership qualities that transcend culture or geography, that speak to the true essence of humanity. With passion and compassion, Barrett encourages you to go deep into yourself to discover your inner qualities and understand who you are, what drives you forward and what holds you back from having the impact you seek. I have become a better person and leader as a result of Barrett’s wisdom and practical guidance.”

— Marianne Kleiberg, Regional Managing Director Europe, The Nature Conservancy

“Barrett is an amazing coach. He consistently brings a powerful blend of focused attention, rich expertise, and supportive challenge. He playfully evokes my curiosity while offering useful and meaningful practices that stretch my leadership influence and impact.”

— Lisa Norton, Professor of Design Leadership, Parsons School of Design

“Barrett delivered extraordinary and incredibly impressive results and leadership for us. He blazed many new trails and leader development programs and was one of our top presenters.”

— Ken Wilber, Author of A Theory of Everything, Founder, Integral Life

“I will be forever grateful for all I gained from Barrett during our year of working together. Over and over he walked with me to the very edges of my capacity, and from there he would gracefully open the way into new possibilities for thinking, being and acting. Barrett never stopped surprising me with his vast and beautiful mind, his enormous heart and how fully he would show up every time.”

— Marie Pace, Consultant in Peacebuilding and Constructive Conflict

“A few years ago, I transitioned from a 20+ year career in business into a new role with an environmental NGO. While I was able to translate many skills into my new context, it became clear that, in order to truly become a leader in sustainability and to do justice to the tremendous challenges we are facing, I had to do some deeper work. In particular, I focused on how I needed to become different inside, as this impacts the way life treats us outside. In this role more than ever, self change is the prerequisite for external change. Barrett’s expertise in individual and personal high-performance, his structured approach to cultivating advanced mental models, and his patient coaching have been invaluable in helping me on the path to the next level.”

— Pascal Mittermaier, (Former) Global Managing Director, Cities, The Nature Conservancy

“The whole program Barrett co-led has been full of compassion and insight. The community we co-created is very powerful. Ultimately I am going home re-vitalized.”

— Sarah Severn, Former Director of Corporate Responsibility, Nike Inc.

“Barrett is a consultant of great skill and integrity. He is at his best when the situation requires the integration of hard and soft skills in a coherent, results driven context. Barrett is also a masterful speaker to large groups and a skillful executive coach and teacher. I would recommend him without reservation.”

~ Dana Carman, Founder, Dana Carman Integral Consulting

“I am the director of a Master´s programme that helps develop and train leaders from all over the world to face and address the complex sustainability challenges of our times. It is a demanding job – mentally and emotionally – and it has been the work with Barrett that has supported me in navigating this path. Over many years, Barrett has helped me to develop the capacities needed for myself as the host of the programme and has deeply influenced what we do with our students. His knowledge of theories and models in the field is extensive and the tools he brings in to work on issues are always tailored, practical and actionable. In our interactions, he has always found just the right combination of being compassionate and challenging me to overcome my self-imposed limitations. If you find yourself needing new skills to navigate our uncertain and complex times and want a trustworthy and experienced guide by your side, I can only highly recommend working with Barrett.”

~ Merlina Missimer, PhD, Co-Director, Master´s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, Blekinge Institute of Technology