ANTOINE HENRY DE FRAHAN
WHO I AM
I am a business consultant, coach, and speaker;
An Associate Professor at Edhec Business School, the author of several books and dozens of articles;
A visual artist, graphic facilitator, and visual speaker;
The managing director of Frahan Consulting and the co-founder of FrahanBlondé, a management consultancy for lawyers;
A former lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb, Linklaters, and Engie;
A graduate from ULB in Brussels (law), Columbia Law School, UNamur (medical sciences), Solvay Business School (IACE Program) and a certified NLP certified master practitioner in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
WHAT I DO
The short answer: I help people create value.
The longer version: I help people, teams, and organisations create value for their stakeholders (clients, colleagues, partners, etc.) and themselves, in a meaningful way.
In practice, it may take different forms: consulting and coaching, teaching, training, facilitating and moderating, speaking and visual talks. But behind the diversity of these activities, my intention and focus are the same: empowering people, teams, and organisations to create value.
WHO ARE MY CLIENTS?
I work primarily with:
Business leaders and leadership teams (CEOs, managing partners, boards, executive committees, management teams, heads of functions (legal, HR, communications, etc.), senior executives, etc.) across a variety of sectors.
Professional service providers (lawyers in law firms and law departments, consultants and consulting firms, etc.).
I sometimes work with the entire organization for training programs, change management projects, or company-wide events, but then always in the framework of a project discussed with and sponsored by senior management.
WHAT IS MY “WHY”?
My ultimate purpose is to create systemic value and empower my clients to do the same.
If you are interested in this concept (and if you can read French), you might enjoy my book Créer de la valeur ou disparaître.
Otherwise, here is the short version:
Creating value means making what you do for others more useful or more enjoyable for them (preferably both at the same time) and more profitable for you.
The ultimate purpose of organizations is to create value, not just for one stakeholder (e.g. shareholders, or clients, or employees), but for all of them. At the end of the day, this is what makes organizations profitable, sustainable, and legitimate.
We are collectively facing unprecedented systemic challenges (think of the climate crisis). Businesses have no choice but elevating and broadening their understanding of the world they live in and their sense of purpose.
In return for the value they create, organizations need to receive back value from these stakeholders. Creating systemic value means optimizing this double flow of value, from the organization to its stakeholders, and way back.
Value creation should also occur within organizations between the people and units that constitute them. The CEO and the executive committee should create value to the rest of the organization; internal meetings should create value; support functions should create value for the business; etc.
Value creation has the potential to become the cornerstone of a healthy, productive corporate culture for the entire organization.