Meet Elizabeth Mead- Chief Strategic Officer of Hiring & Co-Founder of Tandem Collaborative, a strategic consultancy based in the U.S.
Elizabeth was born and raised in an entrepreneurial-spirited family that defied the general status quo in her society. Like most people, she started her career working for corporates and an agency. For the longest time, she put herself in a box defined by the corporate climate around her. However, with time she realized that it wasn’t enough for her to just clock around traditional jobs and go on like this- to her, marketing, sales and business strategy seemed to be moving in the wrong direction – towards the shallow end. As an individual, she liked to swim in the deep ocean of possibilities and excel at it. She wanted to get a high creating value in her results and of course, the experience out of it.
“So, I ditched my day job and started doing it differently. At first, I was a freelancer. Then, I partnered with my husband, another corporate rebel, and we started a company together. We made it our mission to be the calm voice of reason in a world that is shouting fear-mongering absurdities. Today, we guide clients to their best tactical strategies to build 7-figure revenues. From start-ups looking for their best launch option to established businesses looking to break stagnation, our strategies have guided hundreds of organizations in 4 different countries (and counting)!” she says.
Her organization, Tandem Collaborative (also known as Team Tandem), is a strategic consultancy with a full-service creative team. Over the years, it has become the strategic sounding board and as she puts it, ‘a trench buddy’ to their clients. In fact, they are the only people whom their clients trust to have their back. At present, they serve 3 types of go-getters: Leaders growing their vision, Organizations growing their partners, and Creatives growing their craft.
However, things weren’t as simple as they are today.
At first, her challenges included scarcity and fear of not being good enough. She played big roles, surrounded by men, who often reminded her that she was too young or too feminine to do something. After years and years of putting in efforts, Elizabeth has now managed to reach a stage where she allows vulnerability to shine on all her flaws, learning from her experiences that failure is indeed the fuel to success.
“Elizabeth is guided by principles. This is what makes her so powerfully consistent in the outcomes that she produces. She is authentic in her approach and is a leader that is willing to jump down into the trenches when others feel themselves above it. She’s never afraid to acknowledge her own opportunity for growth and those with whom she works, love her for that. I especially enjoy approaching Elizabeth with new business ideas. Her continuous ability to map out, and then refine the complexity of concept into a simple and articulate message is enviable, and on top of it all, she makes the entire process feel like fun! I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with her for over a year now on a handful of projects and as long as she has the bandwidth, I’ll never go anywhere else!” – says Jared McClure, CEO of Tandem Collaborative, about Elizabeth’s work.
As she looks back at her journey, she realises that if an individual has the right skill set with the right attitude, then he/ she can definitely go places. She says, “You’re a committed and visionary business leader, carving your own path on an entrepreneurial journey. You spend your day in the hustle, conquering the elusive balance of working IN your business and ON your business. You’ve got a knack for creating success, demonstrated by your career path thus far; and now you are putting that skillset to use for your own dream. If you had to put a resume together today based on your responsibilities, it would read ‘ask me what I don’t do – that will kill less trees’.“
According to her, success is important to us because it’s just more than about us -it’s about the community we serve. Success means we get to help these communities and that should be our motivator. It is only when the people around us appreciate our work that we feel that we have achieved something important in our life and that feeling is one of the best feelings anyone can have- provided we aren’t after monetary success only.