In May 2023 Ann and Sarah participated in the Veuve Cliquot bold women award, and more specifically in the bold future award.

We wanted to participate to inspire women entrepreneurs to persevere and women to be-entrepreneurs to jump.

We are convinced that being an entrepreneur is a mindset that you can develop and cultivate your whole life long.

The criteria for this award are the following: Demonstrate entrepreneurial daring, reinvent traditions with success and maintain an ethical approach to business.

Convinced we had a story to tell, we embarked on a journey to tell our story in the most authentic and convincing way possible.  Even if the jury did not consider us among the last finalists, we are proud about our story and happy to share it.

How it all started

Founding Yeast meant a complete career switch for both of us: Sarah was working as a consultant in business development for a Belgian tech start-up in the U.S. and Ann had been working as a marketing director for several local and global companies.

In this former professional life we had experienced the power of a creative thinking methodology in managing innovation and change. This inspired us  to use deliberate creativity to support organisations in leadership, innovation and transformation. Key challenges in today’s business world. Companies need to reinvent themselves: their business, their organisation, their leadership.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Since we started to test our recipe, we have been building true leaders and real collaborative teams.  It is how we do things, that makes us innovative: our approach is pragmatic, the outcome is regenerative:

• • we create a context and facilitate solutions instead of giving solutions
  • we translate Deliberate Creativity into practices with our clients and with our team

and we continue to be regenerative at Yeast by challenging ourselves and improving what we do and how we do it.

It is not a walk in the park

Behind the romantic idea of creating a business, is the reality of overcoming obstacles, every day again.

The main challenge for us is about searching balance.

A balance between

• ‘being bold (‘we can conquer the world’) and being self-critical (‘are we good enough?  can we make it happen’);
• our natural self-confidence and being confronted with criticism from others (‘is this really a full time job?  can you make a living out of it?)
• the tendency to comply with ‘what is expected from a company’ (i.e. grow in numbers) and how we see the future of Yeast (organic growth)
• building our business and being facilitators for our clients

The way we try to find that balance is by applying the Yeast approach to ourselves:

We challenge each other, we connect by listening and having open and transparent feedback loops, we stimulate each other to think out of the box and we remain committed to our beliefs.  We do not ‘know it’ , yet we trust in each other  and in our team and build step by step.

Yet, the future is bright

That is the way we envision the future: growth in revenue or profit has never been a goal in itself for us. It is more a consequence rather than a target.

Yet we do grow :

• as a persons, by enriching ourselves every day with new insights and experiences
• as a Yeast community to inspire and learn from each other,
• in number of clients and Yeast facilitators.

And we have the ambition to

• Multiply the Yeast approach and make more organisations regenerative 
• Continue to shape Yeast facilitators
• Maintain EU as our playing field
• Remain authentic and build on our foundations at our pace
• Integrate new and proven methodologies in our service offering

And Yes, CSR is at the centre of our business in a very specific way

We translate CSR into our business by focusing on the skills, mindset and collaboration that are needed to make a positive impact on society:

We explicitly integrate the Inner Development Goals* : a framework of science-based skills and qualities that help us to live purposeful, sustainable and productive lives and when working with clients and in our team, we always create  an explicit or implicit context that enables Diversity & Inclusion.

*Inner Development Goals

We know we are role models, though we remain humble with our advice:

To start, just jump, if you are convinced you can make a difference– go and believe even if nobody else believes – take the risk according to  your own financial limits  – ask for help, reach out to your network.

We started a company based on our shared strong beliefs, a lot of business experience and a learning attitude

Once you launched your business, stay authentic, learn, evolve and never compromise.

We build our company according to our core values, we continue to evolve, innovate and jump.

Through our participation, we also want to be advocates of collaboration: in these uncertain times, working together as human beings is one of the only elements of stability.  It is worth investing in.

Working as a duo is an amazing experience with as fundamental building block deep trust.