Behind talentX: About winning her freedom and building companies you love to work for
Becoming a founder isn't a linear path. Danielle Blizzard is sharing 5 years long journey of validating her business model, gaining trust in herself and starting a people consultancy of her dreams.
Meet Danielle Blizzard, a well-known leader in the UAE people & culture scene. And for the past 1.5 years, she has been the founder and CEO of her dream people consultancy, talentX.
Talking to Dani made me appreciate once again the personal stories and hardships most us, founders, have to go through to finally build what we believe in and dreamt of. On the surface, you can see Dani as a successful woman with a good career track record, ending up building her own company, but the background story is never that simple. And Dani was very open in our interview about all the personal pitfalls, toxic workplaces, and struggles that finally made her gain her freedom. As she says, everything happens for a reason.
Enjoy this founder story!
From internal HR to building your consulting firm - how did that happen?
I first started thinking about building my people consultancy 5 years ago. I still have a picture of my initial business plan. However, at that time, I wasn't ready to start my own company - neither mentally nor financially.
I also had no idea I would live through some of the 3 most difficult years of my life right after.
This story is personal, but I think it made me who I am today, everything happens for a reason. So let me share the whole background that brought me to become a founder.
I remember being a bit bored at my employer, where my focus as HR leader was a lot on recruitment and building high-performing teams. Suddenly, I got an offer from a very lucrative investor in the UK to join him and build exactly that people consultancy I had imagined for myself, leading the whole Middle East branch. He had the funds to do that, I did not. It felt too good to be true.
Well, I accepted the offer, however it soon started going downhill after that. I slowly found out the environment the CEO created was extremely toxic, there was no strategy, no business plan, no alignment. I was standing alone in Dubai, with just one employee and a business that I was super passionate about and trying my hardest to build, with very little support.
Then COVID hit, and it got worse. While the UK branch was put on the UK government furlough scheme, I was left without a salary for 6 months and paying my employee out of my own pocket, whilst being ghosted by my own CEO. I lost my savings, health, and went through a really difficult time. At the point of complete breakdown,
I reached out to my mentor at AstroLabs and that's when the new chapter happened.
That sounds terrifying. Did you manage to build your dream consultancy with AstroLabs?
AstroLabs acquired the Middle East branch of the people consultancy, and we went on to launch AstroLabs Talent, a recruitment business for startups and scaleups. As time went on, I found that every client we were working with was still facing the same pain points that had made me want to launch a people consultancy in the first place.
It’s not just about hiring but also about making sure you create the right environment for people to thrive and drive performance. I knew it was time to unleash my vision and solve the problems that I knew every founder and leader was facing. In a country where you have over 200 nationalities, you have to be intentional about the culture and environment that you are building.
I started talking to my network, gathering feedback on my business plan, and very quickly, I founded talentX and started consulting for a number of tech companies. These companies were either expanding into the region and needed support understanding the local labour laws, culture challenges, and talent landscape, or had received investment, were expanding into new regions, and in a hyper growth phase with little or no structure in place to do so.
What did you take from this experience of working in not very supportive environments?
From my experience over the years, I have learned the importance of being selective about whom we work with and ensuring that our values align. Respecting each other is the first step to building a collaborative partnership and I make sure that I personally spend a significant amount of time with the founders/CEO’s before we commit to anything.
We genuinely embrace vulnerability as this is the only way that we can truly help our clients.
If they can’t be vulnerable with us, then there is a lack of rust, which is the foundation of teamwork, and without it we won't tackle deep, complex topics. Ultimately, their success is our success and if I don’t feel that we can help them then I will tell them.
Tell me about talentX, what problems are you solving, what are your recent projects?
My vision for talentX is deeply rooted in the concept of growth through people. When I launched talentX, it was with the idea of accelerating and growing companies through their people and talent strategies. You can only achieve x10 growth when your team is working with the send mindset as athletes do in a high-performing sports team.
In terms of the problems we're solving, they often revolve around strategic planning for both the short and long term. We address pain points like high employee turnover, teams not working collaboratively, or the absence of the right leadership team in place. By focusing on these areas, we aim to foster scalable and sustainable growth along with creating environments where people can thrive.
We've structured our consultancy around four key pillars that address the core needs we see in the businesses we work with:
talentXPeople: Our goal here is to drive performance through effective people operations. This could involve interim HR professionals coming in, automating HR processes by implementing HR Tech, and rolling out performance management systems.
talentXLeadership: Focuses on leadership assessments, development, and coaching. We've launched the talentX Leadership Accelerator Program, a 10 block initiative designed to enhance leadership capabilities in a hyper-growth environment. We host the most energetic leadership offsites and team-building activities!
talentXCulture: We define values and design and transform cultures that drive the right behaviors to multiply performance. Through our employer branding agency, we craft a captivating employer brand that mirrors your culture, values, and strengths.
talentXacquisition: Our dedicated talent acquisition experts are integrated into our clients to enhance their recruitment efforts and build a well-oiled recruitment engine. This involved talent acquisition operations, interviewer training, along with sourcing the best talent from around the world!
Everything we do at talentX should result in an enormous WOW effect - and I think we are getting very close to that!
Culture isn't always healthy in local companies. Why is that?
From my experience, there are two key factors:
Inexperienced founders.
Poorly managed multicultural environments.
Regarding founders, a lack of real leadership experience is a problem. This often leads to the underestimated decision to build teams inexpensively or without a clear D,E,&I strategy.
When they secure investment and need to grow quickly, they often have the wrong people in place to really scale the company. When you have people from different nationalities in one place, they are all bringing their own unique ways of working and you can’t simply put them in an office and expect them to work together effectively. You have to be intentional about growth, plan it, define the rules, values, organizational design, and leadership styles you want to encourage and have as your own standard of performance.
I'm very intentional about this with my own team and genuinely want to build an environment where psychological safety is paramount and the exact safe culture where people can thrive, grow, and develop.
What is your vision for talentX?
Our mission at talentX is to be the trusted partner for high growth tech companies in the Middle East that empowers them to achieve 10x growth through visionary people and talent strategies, enabling them to hire, inspire, and win, with confidence.
Next year, we are planning on launching our new service offering, talentXacademy, and we are aiming to build a training platform where all of our content and training programs are accessible in one place for our clients.
This platform would not only serve as a repository of knowledge but also as a community hub where leaders and talent professionals can come together, share knowledge, and grow.
For instance, taking graduates and equipping them with the soft skills necessary to thrive in a professional setting is something we're piloting now, and having a platform in place with online and onsite training would be very useful.
Building communities is something we’re very passionate about, so very soon, we'll be launching our own talentX community for leaders to openly share experiences and struggles across industries and learn from each other.
How do you stay up-to-date, find interesting resources and keep on learning?
I'm really obsessed with reading.
One book that shaped me and my leadership style is "The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership" by Bill Walsh. I see many parallels between sports and business in terms of culture and performance. You can hear me using quotes from the book all the time.
And, of course, I love to learn from other people in a similar role to mine. What they are posting, reading, and their experiences.
Thank you Dani for being vulnerable and sharing your founder story.
All the best to you and talentX!
Kristina
Check my e-shop with super detailed and structured resources that will help you to:
1. set up your Dubai Freezone company without overpaying for an agent
2. connect with the best VCs and investors in the UAE
My newsletter is free, without ads, done aside bootstrapping my own startup.
Want to support my efforts? Buy me a coffee☕️