Roxana is the Founder of All Personal, a Canadian award-winning leadership and team coaching & training company, helping corporate team leaders and start-up co-founders boost leadership skills, team communication, impact, motivation and performance, for long-term thriving results. All Personal is a proud Winner of the Great Companies Global Business Award – 2023, Category: 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, Sub-Category: Leadership and Team Coaching. Unlike other people leadership programs that focus only on top executives, All Personal also works with mid-senior corporate leaders or start-up co-founders – and their teams!
Roxana Radulescu, Leadership & Team Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
My name is Roxana Radulescu, Romanian born and Canadian based, learning & development geek who has so far worked with teams and clients spun across Europe, Canada, USA, China.
I am both an introvert and a TEDx speaker, a Certified Learning & Development and HR Practitioner, Certified Team Coach, and Individual Coach Practitioner, a Certified GCologist® and Scaled OKRs Coach.
Having worked in multinational top-tier legal professional services firms (Linklaters, White & Case, Kinstellar) for 17 years, I have led the global Learning & Development department for 8+ years as Head of Learning & Development.
I founded my leadership coaching & training business, All Personal, in 2017, the same year that my family and I moved to Canada from Romania (but that’s a different story!).
And I know it might sound funny to have a business called All Personal. Well, that’s what I thought too!
I chose this name because I believe it’s All Personal, nothing is just business! Because it’s all intra-personal (how we manage ourselves) and inter-personal (how we manage our relationships with others).
Fun facts
I am a half-marathon runner, having discovered running as a cure for my migraines some 15 years ago, back in native Romania! So, every time I get a migraine, I drag myself on to the treadmill and start running for at least 30 minutes. Painful, and yet miraculously effective – so I also addressed it in my TEDx talk.
As a GenXer, threshold Millennial, mom of 2 Gen Zs, and working with (mostly) Millennial leaders, while partnering with other leaders from the Boomer and GenX generations, I'm a firm believer in the power of inter-generational learning!
I also love the blend of European, Canadian and US personal and professional experiences in my life.
My belief is that we are all Citizens of the World and, as such, have both the right and the responsibility of reaching the full potential of who we came here to be!
(Oh, yeah, and I really do have blue hair.)
What inspired you to create All Personal, and what is the core mission of your business?
It started because of an animated picture! Well, actually because of plenty of movies where we’ve heard the good old ‘nothing personal, just business’.
But in this particular animation – ‘Monsters vs Aliens’ – aliens had landed on Earth and were letting everyone know that ‘We come in peace, we mean you no harm and you’re all gonna die. Nothing personal, juuuust business.’
Now, watching this with my 2 very young kids at the time (this was about maybe 10 or more years back) made the entire scene even funnier!
They both rolled their eyes laughing, and I remember I caught myself thinking ‘yeah, right, how is dying not personal, good luck with that!’
Because the minute you say ‘nothing personal’, guess what happens. It becomes All Personal. No matter what you may think of it, it will affect me on a personal level.
And it ignited a spark that, many years later, became the All Personal mantra: ‘It’s All Personal, nothing is just business.’
Because being successful as a human being (not an alien) is both:
intra-personal: how we manage ourselves
and
inter-personal: how we manage our relationships with others.
Both at home AND at work!
The vision is to help people managers Lead Different, become Dream Leaders and Build Dream Teams, so that we create a future of work we are proud of and happy with, for ourselves and for generations to come!
All Personal is on a mission to bring game-changing leadership training & coaching programs not just to top executives, but also to those who need them most, when they need them most: at the beginning and in the middle of their leadership journey!
This is what empowers them to create a ripple effect in their world, so that we all start to LEAD DIFFERENT and WORK DIFFERENT!
Can you provide an overview of the services you offer? What sets your coaching services apart from others in the industry?
Unlike other people leadership programs that focus mostly on top executives, All Personal also works with mid-senior corporate leaders or start-up co-founders – and their teams!
There are 5 main options that are simple and effective, and provide a blend of services that leaders can pick & choose from, depending on their needs, time, and budget:
Three main options:
a. 3-month full program: 360 impact assessment, online leadership course suite, bi-weekly coaching sessions, check-ins in between
b. Leadership office hours: on-demand leadership development coaching sessions for busy professionals, team managers, team leaders and small business CEOs.
c. Business impact assessment & strategy session: how you make your best impact in your role, team and organization, and build your leadership presence and influence.
2. Team Coaching Program – for In-House Teams
360 team effectiveness survey, interviews, diagnostic, debriefs, monthly team coaching sessions
support teams and leaders:
to understand team strengths and areas of development as a cohesive team.
to define team purpose, values, and priorities.
to build the team's capacity to manage conflict.
to clarify goals, performance indicators and roles.
to help the team leader coach the team, and the team to coach itself.
program offered in partnership with Tracy Wilk Leadership Coaching
perfect fit for mid-senior Team Leaders/Team Managers and Project/Product Managers
3-month program, cohorts of maximum 10 people
the program runs twice a year
learn at your own pace and get lifetime access to all purchased courses
get one 1-1 coaching session included with each online course
because you DON'T need one more online course where you click your way through a content that you can't apply!
5. Team Workshops & Speaking
Build Your Game-Changing Team (powered by The Game-Changing Index®)
Communication for Collaborative Teams
Coaching & Mentoring as a Management Style
Emotional Intelligence for Game-Changing Leaders
Feedback for High-Performance and Collaborative Teams
Listening Skills for Effective Teamwork
Leading with Kindness
Many individuals seek leadership coaching for various reasons. Could you share some success stories or client testimonials that demonstrate the positive impact of your coaching services?
I know I am lucky, because I’ve worked with incredible clients who inspire me through their work, drive, passion, and leadership long after our coaching engagement has completed. They have also been very generous with their feedback, so I am not going to share all of it, but if you’re curious, there’s more you can check out here.
Bonnie Puntasecca, Tour Operations Manager, YMT Vacations, USA
‘During one of the most difficult points in my career – I was fortunate enough to find Roxana!
I learned about her through my organization’s online learning platform which included several of her Bookboon courses.
I then began to follow her on LinkedIn and appreciated the content she shared. Upon checking out her website and learning she does coaching, I reached out and asked if she would be available for a short-term commitment to help me navigate a challenge.
We had a complimentary 30-minute consultation that made me feel even more assured that she could help me. Compassion, understanding, empathy, passion, enthusiasm and highly intelligent are all qualities that come to mind when I think of Roxana.
I especially appreciated the fact that she specializes in mid-career professionals.
I went in search of someone that could help me navigate a complex challenge, skill up and help me see what I couldn’t – I found all that and more with Roxana. I am eternally grateful to her!’
Leandro Cordeiro, Director, Partner Offers & GTM at Microsoft
‘Roxana is a fantastic coach, any business leader looking to increase their effectiveness and impact must consider connecting with her asap. Been great engaging with her and her team recently.’
Nasim Eftekhari, Exec. Director, Applied AI and Data Science at City of Hope
‘I worked with Roxana Radulescu and Tracy Wilk for a 360 review of my team, and I had the most amazing experience. I was able to assess my team in multiple dimensions, learn about our strengths and weaknesses, and got recommendations about next steps, how to play to our strengths and how to address the weaknesses.
Roxana and Tracy both genuinely cared about me and my team's success. They are both smart, knowledgeable, experienced, generous with their time, and all in all a pleasure to work with.
Before the team exercise, I had taken one of Tracy's online leadership classes and I'm looking forward to many more, as the class was very helpful when I had just started in my leadership journey.
Roxana is especially empathetic and insightful in observing and assessing all aspects of the issue at hand and all people involved, and creative in suggesting potential solutions that might work for everyone.
I highly recommend Roxana for any individual or team coaching needs.’
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
I have a top 3! I told you I’m a learning geek, so I like to acknowledge and measure progress step by step.
Putting myself up to speak at TEDx in 2017 and becoming part of the TEDx Speakers community.
Enrolling in the GTCI Team Coaching certification program back in 2021 and becoming a Team Coaching Certified Practitioner, so I can bring more impactful change in the leadership coaching industry, not just as an individual leadership coach, but also as a team coach)
All Personal receiving the Great Companies Global Business Award – 2023, Category / Industry: Education, Training & Coaching, Sub-Category / Sub-Industry: Leadership and Team Coaching.
This most recent one came as a huge surprise and made me literally jump for joy!
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
Now, that’s a work in progress! The main 2 changes I wish to see and have contributed to so far are:
1. Bringing individual coaching to emerging and middle people managers
They are the ones who are boots on the ground, caught up between their own direct managers, their teams, their work.
The ones who typically get ignored when it comes to leadership development training & coaching.
The ones who belong to the so-called ‘frozen middle’ because survival mode seems to be the modus operandi rather than the exception.
2. Bringing team coaching in leadership development programs
Because in today’s world, no one person has the recipe for what we need to do.
It’s all about who on the team is best equipped to contribute and when.
And that’s what team coaching does: it helps address issues like accountability, psychological safety, trust, communication, processes within the team, with the team and leader together.
It helps teams and their leaders get out of overwhelm and miscommunication.
It allows them to give themselves the space needed to plan, share, reflect on topics that they never seem to have time for, but which have a huge impact on their team effectiveness, productivity, and results.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
No surprise here, it’s an all personal moment.
I was on an evening flight from Budapest to Bucharest – returning home from a work assignment back in my corporate days. I shared the NDE (near death experience, apparently it has its own acronym!) with one of my colleagues and friends (I am the kind of person who makes friends at work, yes).
It was winter. The plane was small, so small it almost felt like a private jet. Only that it wasn’t, it was just small.
And right before landing, there it came, a lovely snowstorm. Our little plane started shaking and howling in tune with the wind.
You know the feeling you get on a rollercoaster? Yeah, well, I forgot that feeling ‘because I never went on one again after that.
The plane kept shaking and howling in a never-ending landing exercise that I believe should have actually started later, but I guess we were somehow pushed by the wind to go down, and then up and down again.
Not sure of it all, to be honest, I just know this: I was cold, hanging on tight to the armrest, eyes almost out of orbit, looking at my friend and at the flight attendant.
And then back into my friend’s eyes. Trust me, we were saying so much to each other without saying anything. That was the longest unspoken conversation I ever had with anyone in my life! We just held hands. Looked at each other. Looked at the flight attendant. Looked out the window. And hoped for the best.
When we finally landed, I could hardly unclench my hands from the armrest. My friend was moving and talking, and I was slowly ‘unfreezing’.
She asked me: ‘what were you thinking about up in the air?’, and quickly added ‘I was thinking we have to find a way out of here’.
I looked at her and started laughing and told her ‘thank you!’.
She looked at me and asked ‘what, why?’ and I said ‘because all I could think about was “I can’t die now, I still have so many things I need to do! I just can’t die!”’.
We were, in fact, both saying the same thing: ‘We can’t die now’.
She was looking for a way out.
I was asking for a second chance in.
Which, super thankfully, I got! So I thought, ‘let’s make it matter!’
And that’s an All Personal decision, isn’t it?
