Build an organization that can carry the work.
I help CEOs and senior teams build organizations where leadership is shared, responsibility is clear, and people can make good decisions and solve problems together.
The strongest organizations aren't held together by a few extraordinary people.
They build the capacity to lead, decide, solve problems and adapt throughout the organization.
When that isn't happening, the visible problem can be misleading. What looks like a difficult person, a dysfunctional team or a failure of accountability may actually be a problem of leadership, structure, decision-making, role clarity or the system itself.
When the organization carries the work, a few people don’t have to carry the organization.
“Julia Cuba Lewis is a remarkably perceptive individual who has the skills and experience to determine why some organizations function well and others do not, particularly at the level of senior management.”
—John Wikswo, University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, and Physics, Vanderbilt University
I've spent my career figuring out what makes organizations work.
For 17 years, I led and grew an organization myself. Since 2014, I've worked alongside CEOs, senior teams and boards across nonprofits, schools, foundations, businesses and other complex organizations.
I've also taught nonprofit management and fundraising to master's-level students at the University of Texas at Austin for 13 years.
That combination matters to me. I know organizational leadership from the inside, and I know what it is like to be responsible for the decisions, people, money, board, culture and mission all at once.
Services
Consulting
For CEOs, senior teams and boards when something important in the organization isn’t working as it should. The work focuses on figuring out what’s actually happening and changing the conditions that are keeping the organization stuck.
Executive Coaching
One-on-one coaching for CEOs and senior leaders navigating consequential decisions, difficult dynamics, competing demands, and the complexity of leading at a high level. A dedicated space to think, examine what’s happening, and determine what comes next.
Six Accelerator
A weekly leadership practice for nonprofit CEOs and senior leaders to step out of urgency, examine what's really happening, gain perspective from peers, and turn clarity into faster decisions and stronger systems.