Between the Lines of Leadership · A Headhunter's Picks (48)
People say every company needs a story. I think every company already has one. What it needs is to know how to tell it.
And I'm not talking about inventing some artificial narrative full of grand phrases and PowerPoint "missions". I'm talking about the thing that makes you different. That moment when you decided you were going to do things your way. That first client. That fall. That conversation with someone who told you "there's something special here". That's where storytelling starts.
It's not about creating a story. It's about uncovering it. And then making it visible.
Having a culture isn't about slapping three nice words on a wall. It's about living it, defending it and letting it show in every gesture. But when you can also share it, show it as something tangible, visible, recognizable, its power multiplies. And if you can tell it with clear, coherent, honest storytelling, that culture becomes even more visible and powerful. Because a real culture isn't imposed, it spreads. And when others get it, feel it and connect with it, it stops being just yours and becomes something shared. That's what really hooks people. And that's what attracts and cultivates talent.
At W Executive, we've spent two years shaping ours (culture is a living thing). Little by little. With small but symbolic decisions. Like naming our meeting rooms "the greenhouse", "the nursery" or "rose gardens". It's no accident. It all comes from one idea: cultivating talent. And that idea has gradually turned into culture. And now into imagery too.
In our office we painted a mural that captures some of the key scenes of our story. It's not just decoration: it's a compass. An emotional map that reflects where we come from, what we've been through and where we want to go.
Here I'll share a few fragments. Because sometimes, to understand a culture, all you have to do is look at how its path is drawn.
Pre-company (Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul)
The seed of what W Executive is today was planted during my time in Turkey, when I crossed paths with Pietro Valdés (now CEO of W Italy). Things don't happen by chance: meeting Pietro in 2012, without knowing it, was my first real glimpse of who would become the future leaders of the W Group. A year after I arrived in Turkey, Pietro left the company we shared to throw himself into an exciting project alongside Federico Vione, today the group's global CEO.
After he left, I didn't reconnect with Pietro until the summer of 2022, when he introduced me to Federico. That conversation got me fired up: it was the trigger to kick off the adventure of building W Executive in Spain. The trust we'd built in the past was key to daring to cross the desert that launching a company from scratch really is, with institutional partners on board and without even a tax ID until March 2023.
Brave founding partners, pre tax ID
In the image above you can see the farmers, representing those first brave souls who decided to bet on the project when nobody believed in it yet. But there's one figure that deserves a special mention: the one holding a fish.
That image is a direct nod to the movie Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise leaves the agency and only one person decides to follow him: the office goldfish. In our case, with his blessing of course, that "fish" was José Antonio Ortega. The company's partner and employee number one. When it was all barely an idea floating in the air, he didn't hesitate to climb aboard. He joined without a signed contract (which back then was more promise than paper)... and let's not even get into the share purchase.
Forever grateful, always.
In this part of the mural you see Milan's Duomo, the place where it all began: that's where the first partners coming on board was hammered out. Right above it, we wanted to pay tribute, with humor and affection, to Mount Rushmore, reimagined as our global reference board. A kind of symbolic compass that points us north and reminds us where we want to go.
The first one on that mountain is our global CEO (Federico), leading the vision we all share.
This is where you see how the process of building and growing this company hasn't been easy. Hence the tightrope walker, who represents how tricky, and sometimes shaky, starting from scratch can be. But it also hints that, with effort (and some hard-earned luck), things move at a good pace: today we're already nearly 80 people on the team.
All across the mural there are constant nods to what really drives us: cultivating talent. It's not about retaining it, it's about attracting it, caring for it and letting it bloom. And speaking of blooming, there's one rose that holds a very special meaning for me. It's a personal tribute. While we were building the company, my mother, María Rosa, slipped into a coma in December 2022 and left us in January 2023. Just as this project was being born, she was saying goodbye.
The purchase of my shares closed at the end of December that same year, and I wanted to leave a symbolic way to keep her present in the mural. That's why one of our rooms is called "Rose Gardens". Because even though the road was hard, it was also full of meaning.
This last image I want to highlight represents the presence we already have across various parts of Europe and how, a few months ago, we took a big step by opening our headquarters in Spain, in Madrid's Torres Kio. It was the natural result of having watered, cared for and grown the most valuable thing we have: the people who make up this team.
From there, with firm roots and a shared vision, we're ready to go after much more.
After seeing how we're living and building our story, you might feel like getting yours in order, since it isn't always this visual. To give you something practical, here's a card deck that's really useful as a starting point if you're stuck. We already shared it a year ago (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/explorando-nuevas-ideas-para-un-verano-de-crecimiento-manuel-soriano-ori2f/?trackingId=fakgf8g2RtyI4IYcfWVXpA%3D%3D) but I think it's well worth doing again.
We were already talking about this a year ago, it's a simple tool for anyone who doesn't know how to start structuring their narrative.
