Barbara Zelenay | Transformation & Advisory

Strategy matters. But the difficult part starts afterwards.

Turning decisions into action when structures are changing, information is incomplete, stakeholders want different things, and the business still has to deliver. That's where I come in.

Transformation. Execution. Communication.

I don't advise from the sidelines

I've spent my career inside businesses while they were changing: building, restructuring, digitizing, integrating, separating, and reinventing how they go to market.

Barbara Zelenay in a working session, explaining and aligning with colleagues

Barbara Zelenay working inside the business during a transformation

Most recently, I was part of the Extended Management Team (EMT) taking a €1bn+ Bosch business with 4,300+ people across 90 locations in 50 countries from corporate ownership to independence under private equity.

My role was to connect the pieces: leadership decisions with execution, commercial priorities with organizational reality, and what was happening in the boardroom with what employees, customers and teams needed to understand and do next. At the same time, I worked across sales, go-to-market and corporate communications to help keep the business moving while we built what came next.

There was no finished playbook. We had to build a new company while running the existing one. Keep customers buying. Keep employees engaged. Separate systems and processes. Create a new identity. Make decisions before every answer was available. And make the transformation real, not just announced.

The problem is rarely the strategy.

Organizations usually know what they want to change. The gap is between the decision and what actually happens on Monday morning. That's where my work sits.

Need someone inside the transformation, not another deck?
Let’s talk about what needs to move.

Book a call →

Where I work

Turn strategy into execution

Translate ambitious transformation agendas into priorities, ownership, decisions, and action. Less transformation theatre. More movement.

Connect the commercial and organizational reality

Sales, marketing, customer experience, processes, organization, and communication don't transform independently. I work across those boundaries rather than optimizing one silo.

Lead through incomplete information

Carve-outs, integrations, restructurings, and major change don't wait until everything is clear. I help leadership teams move while being transparent about what is known, what isn't, and what needs deciding next.

Make communication part of the transformation

Not the announcement at the end. Communication is an operating tool. It creates clarity, surfaces resistance, aligns leaders, and keeps people and customers with you while the organization changes.

Get close enough to the work to know what's really happening

Boardroom. Customer meeting. Town hall. CRM process. Leadership workshop. Or the conversation nobody particularly wants to have. Transformation looks different from the inside than it does on a steering committee slide.

Bosch → Independence

4,300+ people. 90+ locations. 50 countries. Four businesses. One separation.

My most recent transformation wasn't a case study I observed. I was inside the leadership team making it happen.

Independent context → Keenfinity: In just twelve months, we have built real momentum.

My remit crossed the boundaries transformation usually exposes: sales and go-to-market, commercial continuity, corporate communications, leadership alignment, employee engagement, group identity and brand transition.

Almost overnight, I became one of the faces and voices people looked to for what was happening, what came next and how we would get there. Internally and externally, I helped translate leadership decisions into what thousands of employees, customers and partners needed to understand and do next. And the business couldn't stop while we transformed it.

Barbara Zelenay with a colleague during the transformation

Barbara Zelenay preparing the NewCo name reveal during the Bosch carve-out

<10%Employee attrition, announcement to close

4 BUsOne corporate structure to four independent businesses

90+Locations connected through the transition

50Countries

15,000+New LinkedIn followers in under three months

~40,000Followers within the first year

But the goal wasn't simply to build a corporate audience. We created a new group voice while strengthening the identities and channels of the individual brands at the same time. The corporate brand needed to connect the businesses, not compete with them.

Keenfinity Group and its portfolio of established brands

One company. Strong brands. Distinct audiences.

Protect today's business while building tomorrow's. This is what I mean by execution.

80/20, then move

I don't believe every question needs a six-week workstream. Get close to the problem. Find the 20% that determines 80% of the outcome. Make the decision. Test it. Learn. Adjust.

That doesn't mean being careless with complexity. It means knowing which complexity matters.

I bring the perspective of a corporate executive, the impatience of an operator, and the communication instinct to make sure people understand where we're going, including when the route changes.

Bring me in when...

Your strategy is clear, but execution is stalling.
A carve-out, integration, or restructuring has created more questions than answers.
Commercial transformation has become a collection of disconnected initiatives.
Leadership knows something has to change, but the organization isn't moving with it.
You need someone who can move between the boardroom and the people doing the actual work without losing credibility in either.
Or simply: you have a difficult transformation problem and don't need another person telling you that it's difficult.

Coming soon

This is the thinking behind EXECUTIO.

After years of doing this from inside large organizations, I’m shaping how that experience can be brought directly into the work — without turning it into another traditional consultancy model.

EXECUTIO is being built around a simple premise: strategy has value only when someone makes it happen.

Transformation. Execution. Communication. Senior experience brought directly into the work: challenging a leadership team, structuring a transformation, unblocking execution, solving a commercial problem, connecting functions that aren't connecting themselves, or helping leaders bring an organization with them when not every answer exists yet.

For now, if you have something difficult that needs moving, talk to me.