Executive Advisor
Corinne Gavlinski
Helping growth organizations move from scrappy to scale
Corinne runs an executive advisory firm for high-growth leaders and their teams.
For two decades, Corinne worked in high-growth businesses where the stakes were high, time was short and her teams had to move from scrappy to scaled.
Her experience spans financial services and health tech where she built customer-facing teams, helping them rapidly scale to achieve significant growth.
Today, she serves high-performing teams as an executive advisor, consultant, and coach, helping leaders build cohesion and improve productivity under enormous time constraints. She arms them with insights and data so they can transform blockers into assets, speed up the time to scale, and improve their team’s productivity.
Corinne believes in three core values - time, teamwork, and ideas. She works with leaders who believe in the collective power of their people and understand that to speed up sometimes you must slow down - it's these values that have a direct impact on an organization's bottom line.
Corinne’s Journey
Here’s what you might not know...
Hi, I’m Corinne. I was a precocious kid. I loved words and language and books. I was outgoing and adept at being able to talk about almost anything. I found early business success by relying on intuition and relationship-building skills.
I once made a fool of myself by responding to an email and cc’ing everyone in the company. I’ve been let go - not once, but three times. I was a terrible leader sometimes. I failed to lead and to pay attention to my team members and their development and motivations. I depended far too long on the skills that made me an exceptional individual contributor and didn’t realize until much later that the skills of a true leader are far different.
I thought I was going to be the next nightly news anchor and studied at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. In financial services I worked abroad, launching quality assurance programs in Canada, England, and Ireland. I’ve been go-kart racing with Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, following a multi-day strategy session to bring the first-ever dual-functioning credit card to market.
And what even fewer people know...
I spent a decade caring for my parents who suffered from two different types of dementia. I lost them within 5 years of each other. I was burned out and numb - I became ill myself. I stepped away from my career at the peak of my earning years to recover. My parents' deaths left me forever changed - life, work, and the value of time were never the same for me.
Most leaders believe that there is no time to lead their teams. They struggle with daily demands and intense pressures to grow their businesses. But, what I learned from losing my parents, is that you must make the time. You must take intentional action if you want to make an impact.
Today, I’m an executive advisor, keynote speaker, and founder of The Gav Group. Our purpose is to help leaders and their teams to slow down - to really see the talent and people and conflicts they have around their table. We arm them with insights and an action plan to accelerate team performance and make a bigger impact for their organizations.
QUALIFICATIONS and EDUCATION
Corinne is a former Senior Vice President of Customer Success, holding executive positions in digital healthcare for 15+ years.
She holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Loyola University in Maryland, is Board Certified as an Executive Coach, and is a Certified Team Coach. She trained with the Center for Executive Coaching, an ACTP (Approved Coach Training Provider) of the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Corinne is certified to use and incorporates the following into her coaching programs: the Genos Emotional Intelligence Inventory (Genos EI), the ProfileXT® (PXT) assessment, and Gallup CliftonStrengths.
Corinne is a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and adheres to the standards and ethics set forth by the ICF.
“I needed a coach who would pull no punches on what she sees and deliver wisdom in a way that moves me ahead and allows me to be who I want to be; this is Corinne! I find her breadth and depth in corporate settings have given her the ability to help me navigate not just onward but upward!”
— K. Clay, Senior Vice President, Payer Services
The Misconceptions of Leadership
Corinne believes that many driven leaders have a blind spot when it comes to dealing with human emotions, often overlooking team members who need help shifting their mindsets or approaches.
There is a common misconception that a single team member may be hindering the team's performance. This could not be further from the truth.
If one doesn't consider the interconnectedness of all team members, the organization, no matter its size, can never scale successfully. An organization that cannot leverage each team member's unique talents can't effectively meet its goals.
Moreover, human complexity often is seen as a burden. The truth is, if leaders genuinely understand their people, they can gain absolute insight into their motivations, the things that inspire them, and ways to retain them.