When a business sets itself an ambition as bold as growing fivefold in five years, the conversation almost instantly turns to strategy, capital, and market positioning. An important but often overlooked question to ask at this point is, ‘who will carry that ambition forward?’
The leadership team at StoneX, a leading global investment banking organisation, asked this question right at the beginning. Technical capability and strategic investment alone wouldn’t cut it. What the organisation needed was stronger, more consistent leadership development at every level, across geographies.
That’s where the partnership between TransforMe and StoneX comes in. Together, we started a journey that was one of the most ambitious global leadership programmes the organisation had ever undertaken.
Why StoneX needed a unified leadership culture
StoneX operates across continents, with front and back office managers working across markedly different contexts, cultures, and priorities. Growth through mergers and acquisitions had brought together talented people but without a shared leadership language, alignment remained elusive.
A deep diagnosis at the outset of this engagement quickly revealed the gaps. Focus group discussions with managers and senior leaders across regions surfaced two consistent patterns:
- Managers were technically strong, but many struggled to influence senior stakeholders, give structured feedback, or lead through change with confidence
- Performance conversations were inconsistent while cross-functional relationships were transactional in nature. Real collaboration between team members was still missing.
Generic training interventions wouldn’t adequately address this challenge. StoneX needed a tailored leadership development programme that could maintain a consistent quality standard across 13 locations, while remaining grounded to the cultural and operational realities of each region.
How TransforMe designed and delivered the programme
The Global Manager Development Programme was built entirely around StoneX’s values, leadership expectations, and growth context. It reached 390 managers across 18 cohorts in cities spanning Bangalore, Singapore, London, Warsaw, New York, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo. The design was grounded in three capability pillars that emerged directly from the diagnostic phase:
- Communicating with Impact
- Driving Performance Excellence
- Inclusive, Collaborative and Change Leadership
Before any workshop was delivered, each participant completed a behavioural pre-assessment that established a baseline across four success capabilities giving the programme design a clear, evidence-based foundation.
Workshops were immersive by design and to support genuine cross-functional collaboration and change management capability, we deployed a network of global facilitators, who were familiar with the cultural and organisational dynamics of their region. In South America, sessions were conducted in Spanish and Portuguese, enabling participants to engage fully in their native language while working from the same global curriculum. The result was a programme that felt locally relevant without sacrificing global coherence.
To see the programme in action, watch the StoneX story on YouTube
How TransforMe reinforced behaviour change beyond the workshop
A workshop, however well designed, is only as valuable as the behaviour change it sustains over time. We built a structured reinforcement model to ensure that leadership development did not evaporate once participants returned to their desks.
Every participant left with a 30–60–90 day action plan, co-created with their line manager and local HR business partner. Four to five weeks after each cohort concluded, all participants reconvened for a three-hour virtual follow-up session to revisit commitments, share early wins, discuss challenges, and receive peer coaching.
Over 12 weeks, participants received personalised learning nudges through an AI-enabled learning platform: short, visual, and interactive micro-reinforcements calibrated to individual capabilities.
The impact on StoneX managers and the wider organisation
The numbers tell a clear story. Across 390 participants the behavioural shifts were significant:
- 77% of participants now demonstrate stronger active listening and empathy-driven communication.
- 86% report greater confidence in cross-functional collaboration across organisational boundaries.
- 71% show enhanced customer orientation, extending their awareness beyond their immediate team.
- 62% take greater proactive ownership, frequently leading new initiatives within their functions.
Across all 18 cohorts, five qualitative themes emerged consistently: a shift from informing to questioning, stronger confidence in difficult conversations, practical adoption of tools and feedback frameworks, peer learning at scale, and a desire to lead from the inside out.
Beyond individual growth, the programme created something less tangible but equally important: a shared identity. Managers across StoneX began to see themselves as part of a single, global leadership community. A shared set of expectations, language and commitment to growth took hold. That is the foundation of any genuine business transformation.
What this partnership shows about modern leadership development
StoneX’s commitment is a testimony to what effective leadership development programmes look like. They begin with evidence and are designed for the specific cultural and operational realities of the organisation. They reach people in their own language, in their own context, through facilitators who understand the difference between transferring knowledge and enabling genuine behavioural change.
The impact of these programmes lasts even after the workshops end because of the reinforcement architecture. Action plans, virtual follow-ups, nudges, AI-enabled assessments, and ROI dashboards reported directly to the Global CHRO and Executive Committee transformed what could have been a one-time event into a sustained capability-building journey.
Organisations that are committed to growth know that culture and capability are strategic considerations and that’s precisely the kind of work we deliver. Leadership development programmes that are data-driven, contextually intelligent, and sustained over time.
If your organisation is navigating a similar inflection point and is witnessing rapid growth, post-merger integration, or the need to build a consistent leadership culture across geographies, let’s start a conversation.
