Creating a Shared Future
A Proposal for Uniting Leaders and Inspiring Change
Contents
An Introduction to Cegos UK
The Cegos Group is a world class learning and development organisation training more than 250,000 people every year across 50 countries, in more than 20 languages thanks to our international presence in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, and our network of trusted partners in every corner of the globe.
We have worked with...
Management Summary
A Message from the UK CEO, Jonna Sercombe
“It’s been a delight to work on this RFP. We understand that bringing together two esteemed organisations like Helvetia and Baloise is more than a strategic transaction; it’s a profound human journey. True transformation succeeds when every leader feels heard, understood, and personally invested in the path forward. Our proposal is built on this single, powerful principle. We don’t just manage change; we guide the people at its heart.
Our approach is designed as a deep, agile partnership, focusing on two integrated workstreams. First, we will co-create a powerful Visual Dialogue—a shared map for your emerging story that makes the future tangible, navigable, and exciting. Second, we will jointly design and
deliver a landmark Leadership Conference in January that moves beyond presentations to become a true catalyst for alignment, collaboration, and commitment. This isn’t about telling your leaders what to do; it’s about equipping them to lead the way.
We bring a world-class team of experts, proven methodologies, and a history of success with organisations like Airbus and, indeed, Baloise itself. The flexible, modular investment we propose is insignificant compared to the immense value of a successful integration. We are ready to roll up our sleeves and work alongside you to not only launch this new chapter but to ensure it becomes the foundation for years of shared success. We look forward to starting this important journey with you”.
By partnering with us, you will get:
Deep Leadership Alignment & Buy-In: A unified leadership team that feels heard and is fully committed to the shared journey, significantly reducing resistance to change.
A Clear & Tangible Vision for Change: A unique, co-created “Visual Dialogue” map that makes your complex strategy simple, memorable, and easy to communicate across the entire organisation.
Empowered & Capable Leaders: Your leaders will leave the conference not just informed, but equipped with the confidence, tools, and shared experience to actively drive the transformation within their teams.
A De-Risked Transformation: A meticulously planned and executed process that mitigates the human risks of a merger and builds a strong, collaborative foundation for achieving your long-term strategic and financial goals.
Project Steps
At Cegos all our Bespoke Projects follow our unique Design Process combined with Pragmatic User centred design. The most important part of this is a consultative, iterative strategy.
For phase one of this project we have two key work streams:
WORKSTREAM 1
Visual Dialogue is the consulting, design and creation of an amazing visual for the change work.
WORKSTREAM 2
The Conference is the consulting design and delivery of a brilliant leadership conference in January.
In change, everyone has to feel heard.
Our very high level approach for this is to run a selection of 1:1 discussions with as many of the key players as possible (time/budget), and also, run some focus groups with all the other key players. This will allow our team to assimilate a very wide breadth of thoughts, feelings and opinions, plus action suggestions “what we should be doing”.
Head
Mindsets, beliefs about change, intellectualisation, frameworks etc
Hand
Suggestions as to action, what we should be doing, skills we need to learn or gaps
But more importantly, the professional listening process generates buy in. This then enables us to have the maximum intelligence and buy in to co-create a plan both for the visual representation, and the detailed plan for the event and all associated elements.
Heart
Emotions, passions, how are you feeling about the change?
Our Design Process
Discover Develop Design Deploy
We get to know your team, leaders, and stakeholders a bit better. Getting feedback on what they want to see, defining metrics, and testing whether they like our ideas helps get buy-in from the start and ensures we’ve got content that works.
Time to test it out! We use evaluation and pilot phases to test and finesse the training. Finally, we proceed with the launch, followed where relevant with posttraining support to maximise impact and learner engagement. 1 2 3 4
Based on our conversations, we take what we uncovered to build flexible outlines — ‘architectures’ — for all assets. Then, we test and validate this with your team to get sign-off, ensuring the collaboration is seamless, efficient and enjoyable.
This is where it comes to life. We create and optimise learning content using the approved outlines to build. We get regular feedback from you and leverage our talented design team to hone interactive and engaging assets.
01 Discover
The discovery phase is the most important part of this project. We follow our proprietary 4D model. This is the listening phase. We can would suggest three levels:
Discovery by an experienced leadership and change consultant, with very light reporting
Typically we would run a 45 minute 1 hour 1:1 discussion where we really actively explore how the senior leaders feel about the change and try to listen to and understand the nuance of what they are going through and where they want to take the organisation. Sympathetic listening, with a coaching approach and the right kind of challenge will enable an excellent level of intelligence gathering AND start the process of the conference buy-in as we will have met, and got to know the people.
Discovery by an experienced leadership and change consultant, combined with a creative visualisation of the discussions
If possible, we would include a creative designer in these conversations to create a micro visualisation of that individual’s thoughts and feelings and then SEND this to the individual as a memory/memento of the discussion. This visualisation becomes an anchor point for the individual but also allows us to start to create visual elements or themes from a wide variety of sources.
Discovery by an experienced leadership and change consultant, combined with a creative visualisation of the discussions plus a detailed report.
With an extra layer we can provide a transcript, or if recorded, an edited video of all of the discovery calls and visualisations compiled into a report. This can include consultants recommendations, insights or suggestions.
If budget or availability is constrained we can also run focus groups of 4-6 people and do the same thing. Focus groups allow for a diverse set of opinions to be heard and recognised. We can also visualise these and produce a report.
We will also consult with all the key stakeholders either in 1:1 or focus groups to work on the event planning for January, considering what they want and need to achieve together plus stylistically what would make a brilliant 3 days.
At the end of the discovery phase, along with Helvetia our partner, we will have:
A very detailed understanding of where the target group is at.
In depth visual or written summaries of how they want to move forward.
Verbal and visual ideas on the obstacles, barriers, tools and other elements they are navigating.
Deep intuitions and understandings of how to proceed with Helvetia into the design phase.
02 Design
The design phase is going to be very collaborative, and really good fun as well as extremely useful.
After lots of listening, visualising, representing we will come together to produce blueprints for:
Visual Dialogue
The visual can be considered as the “canvas for your emerging story”. Typical visuals represent a map, with areas paths, as metaphors. Our creative director and CEO will work with your project leads and boards to sketch out ideas for how this visual might look. We will cover more elements in the creative section. What you will see is a careful representation of the journey/map, plus, we will work on different layers of icons/facets to add additional meaning.
As we shape up these sketches together, we will consider how all the elements work together using gestalt psychology to help people make meaning of the changes. For
example, we might want to work up an area of the map where people can feel lost, “The forest of confusion”. We can insert context specific elements, for example, does the wood have a bear in it? As in, you might feel lost, or you might feel lost and actively scared of the bear! But, what is the bear? Is it other people? Is it wasted time? Is it HR? Who is the bear in this scenario. Emily Larson and her team are absolutely brilliant at this work, and we may follow creative passions, working on different illustration styles, working on different representations. We might (for example) want to include tiny elements from every single one of the research conversations in a pastiche.
The Visual Dialogue The Conference
Conference
The next blueprint is for the conference. Our former contacts at Baloise know just how phenomenal working with us is in creating this kind of event. We worked closely with them to create their top 100 leaders event previously. As we are in the design phase, we will work with you all to use the intelligence gathered from the discovery phase and turn it into some
phenomenal concepts for the leadership event in January. We are masters of the interactive, experiential event design and will iterate with you to create all the blueprints and architectures for a phenomenal event. It is too early to suggest formats, but anyone who has been to a leadership conference knows will recognise 4 key types.
Linear Informative
We all are on exactly the same track together, and it’s a serious event.
Linear Experiential
We are on exactly the same track, but it’s an informal event with panels, discussion, and a relaxed vibe and lots of stimulus.
Non-linear Informative
We have breakouts, workshops and each person has a different experience over the event, but the sessions are serious and lead by experts.
Non-linear experiential
The event is a wide variety of different sessions run in different ways, with experiential elements and a relaxed vibe with stimulus and freedom.
Or, in other words, we need to agree on the desired outcomes and set an agenda with the Helvetia project team. Probably it will include leadership input sessions, Q&A, Breakouts, Experiential, Small Group Works, Discussions, Panels, Activities.
Visual Dialogue 03 Develop
Having finalised all the high level details for both elements, now we can get to work.
Our Design Studio will create the Visual Dialogue Map from the sketches. We use digital tools as well so we will be able to iterate this with the Helvetia team. It is possible to make digital versions that include animated elements. It’s possible to include videos and rich assets into the visualization process. To do this effectively we will need access to a single
sponsor (ideally one who doesn’t keep changing their mind). These visualizations are labour intensive so whilst we want to be collaborative we also need to make good progress. Depending on your preferred working methodology this can be done at distance or you can come to our studios and see the work in action.
Conference
With regards to the conference, our senior learning designers will lead the creation of all the assets including:
Content, whether from the discovery phase, from external or our own sources.
Resources, such as visuals, slides, handouts, guides, digital portal.
Session flows, session leader guides.
All these content assets will be developed, designed, and then shared for feedback, iteration and completion. We can make resources available in multiple formats and languages as needed. Previously with Baloise there was “more iteration than is typical” because of the high level of passion, care and attention to detail. It is worth noting that with this type of event, senior focus creates an imperative for perfection.
Digital Portal for the conference, such as a Sharepoint site.
As we build the content our team will also prepare the facilitators, session leaders, external speakers and the Helvetia and Baloise leaders to run a phenomenal event. These processes steadily build confidence that this is going to go really well and we are going to achieve our aims.
As we approach the event we can run the Train the Trainers or any other such event as needed to get everyone on the same page.
Visual Dialogue 04 Deploy
Deploying the visual is both a physical and virtual launch of the Visual Dialogue map. We can create an animated version that shares the journey in a digital film. We can create print versions for display. We can create any kind of resource such as merch, or other printed assets.
If desired we can do this through a teaser marketing campaign, where small elements are released step by step in the weeks before the event.
Our approach is to create intrigue and anticipation. Again using gestalt psychology, we propose to share elements, rather than the whole thing at once. If we tease elements people can start to see those and then, over time they will understand the whole.
If we are able to create a portal we may also create spaces of mechanisms for dialogue such as forums, teams channels, etc.
Conference
Deploying the conference means getting all the people involved to the right place and doing all the great work. These three days will have been planned in meticulous detail, had a suite of bespoke workshops and content created for it, have the best facilitators you can find, fully briefed internal experts and be an immense success.
Our team usually arrives 1-2 days before the event. We would suggest using a local events company or similar to run
One idea we have to mention.
the logistics if that level of support is needed. Our team is able to MC, host, facilitate, energise, and lead a brilliant experience. Because everything has been planned to the finest detail AND we are agile, responsive and able to improvise, we will have a fantastic experience together that lays the foundation for the following months and years of change. We can bring creatives too, including videographers, graphic facilitators, animators, to help us in the creative elements.
We suggest that at some point in the conference we make time for leaders to create their own “character”. This would be a stylised, illustrated version of themselves, perhaps an avatar. This activity would be introspective allowing each person to consider what they are really like, how they handle pressure, change, ambiguity. We can then use this to help them understand how they navigate the “Map”, and how they lead others through the “Adventure”.
This character/avatar can be used for cartoon style visualizations and storyboards about the journey Baloise and Helvetia are on. They can humorously show our dark side or weaknesses, and also focus on each individual’s unique talents and superpowers needed to navigate change. This activity will make the map living, as it is inhabited by living people.
References
Leadership in Focus: Redefining Executive Engagement at Airbus
When global aerospace leader Airbus sought to create a transformative leadership experience for over 400 senior leaders; both internal and external, they didn’t settle for the status quo. Partnering with the Cegos Group, we designed Leadership in Focus, a high-impact summit where leaders became active contributors; challenged to explore the paradoxes of modern leadership and co-create a powerful collective narrative.
At the heart of the experience: storytelling as a strategic tool for influence and connection. Through interactive workshops delegates crafted authentic, impactful leadership stories. The journey culminated in a live storytelling showcase, where nominated leaders took centre stage, to share their insights.
The result? A bold reimagining of leadership development; where learning wasn’t delivered, it was lived. And the final product? A unique, collaboratively written book capturing the evolving leadership DNA of Airbus.
Contact Person: Dona Vitonou
Title: Airbus Leadership University Campus Leader Toulouse
Contact Details: dona.vitonou@airbus.com
Reimagining Leadership: Baloise Turned a Leadership Camp into a Strategic
As a major player in the European market, Baloise didn’t just want event, they wanted a breakthrough. ignite strategic engagement, and challenge the norms of development. Introducing the bold, unconventional leadership for over 100 senior leaders. discovery phase, the experience that shaped a unique new format: weren’t just attendees, but active communicators of the strategy.
From the moment they arrived, given a provocative challenge: Pick a strategic topic outside a workshop. Then deliver it Engagement Week.” Collaboration it was essential. And the outcome? exchange between leaders transformed top-down messaging dialogue. The results were clear: authentic engagement with functional collaboration, sharper facilitation capabilities, increased feedback; proving that when and co-create, engagement run a leadership event. They where strategy is lived, not
Contact Person: Barbara Ahr-Wendl
Title: Transformation - People & Organisational
Contact Details: barbara.ahr-wendl@baloise.com
Leadership:
How Leadership Strategic Catalyst
European insurance want another leadership breakthrough. The goal? To engagement, foster collaboration, of traditional executive the ‘Unconference’; a leadership camp designed Co-created with a deep experience was built on insights format: one where leaders active architects and strategy. arrived, participants were challenge: “Form a diverse team. outside your expertise. Design at our annual Strategic Collaboration wasn’t optional; outcome? A dynamic and employees that messaging into two-way clear: Deeper, more with corporate strategy, crosssharper communication and increased positive employee when leaders listen, inspire, engagement soars. Baloise didn’t just They launched a movement; just announced.
Leading Change: One Leader at a Time
As a global leader in real estate services, Savills has long understood that lasting success isn’t just about property, it’s about people. For over a decade, the firm has partnered with the Cegos Group to shape a leadership culture that doesn’t just respond to change, but drives it. In a rapidly shifting industry, Savills continues to evolve, staying ahead by ensuring its leadership development evolves too. Because today’s challenges demand more than titles or tenure, they demand leaders who connect, inspire, and act as true carriers of change.
Through a deeply experiential approach; designed to go far beyond the traditional classroom, Savills has engaged hundreds of leaders and managers across the globe. Over 12 months of immersive learning, collaboration, and real-world application, participants don’t just learn about leadership. They live it. The insight? Transformation starts with relationships. The method? Building trust, empathy, and connection.
As leaders step into their roles as change champions, they realise something powerful; they aren’t just leading teams, they are shaping the future of the organisation.
Contact Person: Noel McGonigle
Title: HR Director UK, Europe & Middle East
Contact Details: nmcgonigle@savills.com
Meet the Team
Jonna Sercombe CEO Cegos Group (UK & US)
Skills:
Seniority: LinkedIn
• Organisational Transformation
• Leadership & Talent Development
• Strategic Change Management
Highly experienced leader in Learning & Development, change, and transformation, with a proven track record of designing and delivering enterprise-wide initiatives that build capability, develop talent, and drive sustainable organisational change.
Veronica Ahrens Strategic L&D Manager Cegos Group (Portugal)
Skills:
Seniority:
• Strategic Learning & Development Design
• Leadership & Talent Development
• Change Enablement through L&D
Results-driven L&D professional with extensive experience in aligning learning strategy with business objectives across international clients. Emily Link Director Cegos
Group (UK)
• Leadership Development & Executive Learning
• Behavioural Change & Organisational Impact
• Strategic L&D Consultancy
Highly experienced in designing and delivering transformational learning experiences for all demographics at global organisations. Larson Creative Director Group (UK)
• Creative Strategy in Learning & Development
• Visual Communication & Visual Dialogue
• Human-Centred Design for Organisational Change
Creative leader with extensive experience shaping innovative, behaviour-driven learning experiences for global organisations.
Laurent Boby
Senior Consultant in Business, Teams and Customer Management
Cegos Group (France)
Skills:
Seniority: LinkedIn
• Organisational Performance & Team Effectiveness
• Customer-Centric Business Consulting
• Leadership & Behavioural Development
Experienced senior consultant with a proven track record in designing and delivering high-impact development solutions for business leaders, management teams, and customer-facing functions.
Ben Heath
Lead Learning Consultant
Cegos Group (UK)
Skills:
• Learning Consultancy
• Leadership & Behavioural Development
• Facilitation of Engaging Learning Experiences
Seniority:
Experienced learning consultant with a strong track record in partnering with organisations and senior leaders to design and deliver high-impact, behaviour-changing development solutions.
Meet the Team
Rachel Cise
Lead Learning Consultant Cegos Group (UK)
Skills:
Seniority: LinkedIn
• Behavioural Change & Leadership Development
• Client-Centric Learning Design
• Facilitation of Engaging Learning Experiences
Highly experienced learning consultant with a proven ability to partner with organisations internationally to design and deliver transformational development programmes.
Gabriela Bran
Lead Learning Creative and Animator Cegos Group (UK)
Skills:
Seniority:
• Visual Dialogue & Graphic Facilitation
• Experiential Learning Design
• Animation
Creative learning specialist with extensive experience designing and animating high-energy, visually-driven development experiences for organisations.
Marianne
Daisy Whittle Learning
Ruffie Director Group (France)
• Strategic Learning
• Large-Scale Transformation Programme Delivery
• Client & Stakeholder Engagement
Extensive experience leading complex, enterprise-wide learning and development programmes internationally.
Heather Bunney
Commercial Director, Lead Leadership Consultant Cegos Group (Switzerland)
Skills:
Seniority: LinkedIn
• Leadership Development & Executive Consulting
• Commercial Strategy & Client Growth
• Facilitation of Engaging Learning Experiences
Experienced leadership consultant and commercial leader with a dual focus on driving business growth and delivering high-impact organisational development solutions internationally.
Whittle Creative Group (UK)
• Visual Communication for Learning & Development
• Graphic Design for Behavioural Change Programmes
Talented graphic designer with a strong focus on creating compelling, purpose-driven visuals that enhance learning experiences and development programmes.
Creative Challenge
How do you integrate legacy, present, and future into a single visual narrative?
The primary challenge is to avoid a simplistic diagram, which can feel disjointed and static. Instead, we create a dynamic and interwoven narrative where the past informs the present and the present builds the future — simultaneously.
We identify a central visual metaphor or “Core Motif” that represents the true essence of your organisation. This motif acts as a visual anchor that evolves across time, all within the same frame.
Legacy (The Roots): We establish the foundation. The motif’s origins are depicted using foundational principles, core brand colours, and imagery that speaks to your heritage. This isn’t just a look back; it’s the source of current strength.
Present (The Living Structure): The Core Motif is shown in its current, active state. This is where we visualise today’s operations, people, and market position. The visuals are dynamic, vibrant, and data-rich, showing the legacy in action now.
Future (The Horizon): The motif extends, transforms, or radiates outward, symbolizing growth, innovation, and strategic direction. This is aspirational and forward-looking, visually connecting today’s strategy to tomorrow’s impact.
Abstract concepts are difficult to visualize without resorting to clichés. Our goal is to make these ideas felt and understood, not just seen. Our “Show, Don’t Tell” approach does just that, integrating your core principles into the fabric of the visual narrative itself.
Embedding Values: We assign a unique visual language to each core value. These are not icons, but graphic features that shape how the narrative is represented.
Example: “Collaboration” is visualized as interconnected nodes of light linking teams. “Integrity” is a transparent, crystalline structure at the core of the motif, showing clarity and strength.
Communicating Purpose: We focus on using powerful, authentic imagery of the world you serve to shape the emotional heart of the story. The purpose becomes the “light source” of the entire visual, motivating every action.
Example: If your purpose is to advance health, we show the relieved face of a patient or the focused dedication of a researcher.
How do you embed values, purpose, and strategic cornerstones in a balanced and engaging way? 1 2 3
Visualising Strategic Cornerstones: We represent your key strategic pillars as the architecture of the visual world. They are the elements that support the entire narrative — the pillars holding up the structure, the gears turning the machine, or the points on a compass guiding the journey. Intentional, robust, and essential.
The key to balance is integration. The values aren’t just overlaid; they are the texture and colour of the scene. The purpose isn’t just stated; it’s the emotional tone. The strategy isn’t a chart; it’s the very logic of the visual world. This creates an engaging experience where the audience absorbs your core principles intuitively and emotionally.
What Now?
September
We kick off and get the team together to start work on the discovery phase focusing on stakeholder interviews.
October
We create detailed planning and get agreed so we really happy.
November
We get busy building all the resources and making sure every detail is attended to.
detailed get that are all
January
It’s a big moment. We launch the Visual Dialogue at the Conference.
December
We finish all our resources together at a TtT and have a Christmas party.
Cost Structure
IF
very simple. We ask: this partnership? not enough. If you invest 1 Whatever you invest the
merger is a
1 billion of
Our
We have 5 months between September and January. For agile projects of this nature we operate an agile partnership methodology.
We agree on a ballpark project estimate, then turn this into a monthly subscription fee that helps us shape each monthly sprint. A worked example is below, but if you think you need more or less we are really happy to discuss. Our initial hypothesis is that a fee of CHF 40,000 per month should deliver the right amount and combination of resources. Here is an example of how that might look in each month.
Director Lead Learning Consultant
Rate Card
Daily Rates are provided. For each area it is possible to use more or less senior resources as guided by the client. Normally it’s about the people you like. Who you want. We have put approximate costs based on a blend of resources. In our partnership model if things are taking longer, or you always want the most senior people, we can easily discuss and adapt either the scope or the budget. If you realise you need to use more budget that is easy; if you want to use less budget, we can be adaptable.
Location
Our resources are based in various European countries including the UK. Our US president is in the US.
Expenses
With regards to expenses policy for team members we are happy to work within either
1. All expenses recharged to client
2. We follow you internal expenses policy and recharge
3. Monthly expenses cap/budget
With regards to direct costs e.g. conference cost, print, these are recharged at cost.
Our ROI calculation is created in two ways:
Organisational
At an organisational level you are going to spend at maximum around CHF 250,000 to invest in an approx 3 year journey that will yield, hopefully, CHF 1 billion per year. This cost is 0.008333% of your net CHF 3bn outcome. The cost is insignificant in this area.
Individual
At an individual level we can look at the investment as a proportion of annual salary. According to Glassdoor a senior underwriter in Switzerland will earn about CHF 150,000. We are proposing to invest approx CHF 2500 per leader, 1.7% of salary. If this makes them even 10% better at their job you will get approx 5:1 ROI in year 1 on salary. Looking at the investment as a percentage of salary it is a meaningful amount. If you get even 2% benefit per individual it will be at minimum cost neutral. The risk is not too high.
Commercial Terms
Contract Duration
We are happy to enter a framework agreement with a quarter by quarter extension arrangement and the ability to adjust the work as needed. We need to know 1 month in advance if our arrangement is to be terminated.
Payment Terms
Payment Schedule: We propose a monthly invoice for the payment rhythm, issued in the middle of each month, paid within 30 days.
Currency and Invoicing: Currency will be CHF.
Price Adjustments
We propose an annual review of the rate card to ensure all parties are satisfied.
