Coffee with ME: Elena Buriani — The Power of Collaboration and Growing Together

Sometimes the best business opportunities start with a simple conversation over coffee. And sometimes, knowing when not to drink coffee is just as important!

SPOTLIGHTS & INTERVIEWS

ME- HR & Learning

11/10/20263 min read

For this edition of Coffee with ME, I met Elena Buriani at Friends Avenue Café in Dubai Silicon Oasis.

Elena opted for a cappuccino, while I went for an Earl Grey tea. Given the number of great meetings I've been having recently, perhaps I was already sufficiently caffeinated!

Elena, however, was taking no chances. She specifically requested decaffeinated coffee, explaining that even a morning coffee containing caffeine could leave her awake into the early hours. Clearly, a little caution was called for!

But once our drinks arrived, the conversation quickly moved beyond coffee and into something much more interesting: business models, membership communities and the opportunities that emerge when organisations with similar ambitions find ways to work together.

Different businesses, a similar philosophy

Elena is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of LEA Growing People, a global coaching and training organisation focused on developing individuals, leaders and high-performing teams.

With more than 25 years of HR experience, she brings together leadership expertise, strategic HR thinking and professional coaching. As a Chartered Member of CIPD (MCIPD) and Professional Certified Coach (PCC, CPCC), her work spans executive coaching, team coaching and strategic organisational interventions.

LEA Growing People delivers programmes in more than 25 languages, helping organisations and individuals address challenges around leadership, resilience, communication, psychological safety, diversity and inclusion, and personal development.

What particularly interested me during our conversation was the similarity between our respective business models.

Although ME HR & Learning and LEA Growing People offer very different services, we both recognise the value of building communities around a membership-based approach.

The underlying philosophy is remarkably similar: bring people together, create value for members, develop relationships and provide opportunities that might not otherwise exist.

Of course, the services and audiences are different, but there is considerable common ground in how we think about growing our respective organisations.

The growing value of member collaboration

One of the things we discussed was how much more member-to-member collaboration we are beginning to see within ME HR & Learning.

Some of these opportunities are initiated by us, introducing members whose expertise, products or services complement each other. Others are happening directly between members, who are recognising opportunities to work together without us needing to make the introduction.

For me, this is an encouraging development.

A membership organisation should be about much more than providing a profile page or access to a collection of benefits. Its real value comes from the relationships it creates and the opportunities that develop as a result.

Whether that means sharing expertise, developing a joint offering, introducing potential clients, collaborating on an event or simply exchanging knowledge, these connections can create value for everyone involved.

And this is something Elena and I both recognised as an opportunity to develop further.

Could we collaborate more directly?

We spent some time exploring how our two organisations might work more closely together.

There is an interesting possibility in combining complementary membership communities, expertise and networks, while maintaining the individual identity and focus of each business.

Rather than simply exchanging introductions, we discussed the potential for a more structured approach to collaboration, identifying where our respective members, services and commercial interests might overlap.

There could be opportunities to introduce members to one another, share relevant content, explore joint activities and create new routes to market.

Nothing needs to be complicated. Sometimes the best partnerships start with a simple understanding that two organisations can achieve more by working together than they can independently.

We left the conversation with some ideas to explore and a shared interest in seeing how we might take things forward.

More than a coffee

What I particularly enjoyed about meeting Elena was the opportunity to move beyond the usual business introductions and talk about the bigger picture.

Building a business, particularly one based on membership and relationships, takes persistence. It requires a constant focus on delivering value, understanding what members need and finding new ways to keep the community active and engaged.

It was refreshing to meet someone who approaches those challenges from a similar perspective, albeit through a very different business.

And perhaps that is one of the most valuable aspects of being part of a professional community: discovering that the person sitting opposite you may have a different business, different expertise and different customers, but share many of the same ambitions.

Elena, thank you for the conversation. I look forward to exploring some of those collaboration opportunities together.

And next time, I promise not to encourage you to have a caffeinated coffee!

Sometimes the greatest value of membership isn't what an organisation provides directly. It's what its members can create together.

About Elena Buriani

Elena Buriani is a Leadership Expert, HR Strategist and Co-founder/CPO of LEA Growing People. With over 25 years of HR experience, she specialises in executive and team coaching, strategic HR interventions and helping individuals and organisations turn challenges into opportunities for growth.

Through LEA Growing People, Elena and her team deliver coaching and training programmes internationally, in more than 25 languages.

Discover more about Elena through her ME HR & Learning profile:

https://me-hrl.com/elena-buriani

Coffee with ME is an ME HR & Learning series celebrating the people, ideas, books, products and services within our community — one conversation at a time.