Marie Louise Fabrin

She did not grow up in an entrepreneurial environment. Her parents were, in her own description, quite the opposite, and that turned out to be the spark: she wanted to create something of her own and see what she could achieve by her own efforts.

She was curious, ambitious and naturally drawn to taking responsibility. The person who organised things, brought people together, and looked for ways to make them work better. She was not a child dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur, but the signs were all there in what she wanted: the freedom to shape things, create momentum, and see tangible results from her own ideas.

“At heart, I'm a builder. I see potential in people, organisations and ideas, and I have a strong instinct to turn that potential into something real.”

What drives her is creating clarity where things feel messy, bringing people with her, and building solutions that work in everyday life rather than on paper.

Away from the work she hikes, and she gardens. Being immersed in nature, reaching the top alongside people she loves, and watching something grow from almost nothing.

“I'm still genuinely amazed every time I pull a carrot out of the ground.”

The hardest stretch was building and scaling a company with people who genuinely believed in the mission, and then having to scale it back down when the business changed. Some of the people she had worked closely with, fought alongside and made promises to about the future could no longer remain part of it.

For someone driven by both people and purpose, those decisions were, in her word, heartbreaking. They cost her sleep, energy, and at times her sense of who she was as a leader.

“I had to learn that caring deeply doesn't protect you from making painful decisions; sometimes it makes them even harder.”

What she took from it is that businesses are cyclical, and that building and leading one means accepting that growth, change and contraction are all part of the same journey. Leadership requires both deep care and the courage to act. Difficult decisions rarely become easier by being postponed, and people deserve honesty even when the truth is painful.

She still carries a strong sense of responsibility for how change affects people, alongside the acceptance that protecting a business's future sometimes requires painful decisions in the present.

She begins by getting to know both the founder and the reality they are operating in, though not across several sessions of small talk. Trust comes from reaching something meaningful quickly: what brought them here, what is taking up most of their mental space, and why it matters now. She listens closely to what they say and to what they avoid.

“Founders rarely need a long warm-up. They need to feel understood, challenged and safe enough to be honest.”

When a founder is avoiding a hard decision, she creates space for them to be honest about what is making it difficult, on the understanding that behind avoidance there is usually something deeply human at stake. She asks direct questions, helps separate facts from fear, and makes the cost of staying stuck visible. The aim is not to supply the decision but to reconnect the founder with their own judgement, so they make it themselves and stand behind it.

When emotion arrives she slows the conversation down and stays with them in it, rather than rushing to fix it, because it is usually telling them something important.

What she pushes hardest on is focus: whether a founder is working on the things that matter most, or solving everyone else's problems and staying busy without moving the business forward. She challenges them to identify what only they can do and let go of the rest.

“That can feel uncomfortable in the moment, because the small things often provide a sense of control.”

And the thing she ends up saying to almost every founder:

“Don't lose yourself in the company you are building.”

Founders do everything in the early stages, and that intensity creates real momentum. Many keep operating the same way as the company grows, even when it slowly drains them. The business, in her view, should evolve around a founder's strengths rather than consume the energy and clarity that made it work.

Ambitious founders ready to examine their business honestly and create meaningful change. She likes rolling up her sleeves and working alongside them as a genuine partner rather than observing from the outside.

She is straightforward about the mismatch. She is probably not the right coach for a founder who mainly wants confirmation that they are already doing the right thing. The best work happens when both people can challenge each other.