ABAX is a smart operations technology company operating across 9 countries. In just a few years, the company grew from around 100 to 300 employees - adding new layers of leadership. Company values were being refreshed. Leadership expectations were being reset.
Through all of it, there was no deliberate, shared framework for what good leadership looks like at ABAX. Development conversations played out differently across teams. Leaders approached their roles from their own experience and instinct. A company that had grown fast, ready to take a more deliberate approach to leadership.
When ABAX planned a major leadership gathering in Gdańsk, bringing together around 65 leaders from across the organisation, they saw an opportunity. They were already working with Alva for talent acquisition. Now they wanted to go further: use science and data to define what great leadership looks like at ABAX, and bring that into the room.
"We had been building leadership based on experience and intuition, not a deliberate framework. As a company in scale-up mode, we needed something more consistent to build on."
— Fredrik Fischer, Head of People, ABAX
ABAX partnered with one of Alva’s licensed psychologist to design an approach that fit their context and ambitions. The engagement covered three connected pieces.
First, the leaders completed Alva's leadership assessment, covering the full leadership structure — from senior directors to team leads across the organisation. The results were aggregated and broken down by function and team, moving beyond a single overall snapshot to reveal patterns at a more granular level. This made it possible to pinpoint shared challenges and agree on clear priorities for where to focus.
Later, Alva joined the gathering in Gdańsk to present the findings and facilitate live sessions based on what the data revealed — grounding the conversation in something concrete, shared, and actionable.
Throughout, the relationship was built as a genuine strategic partnership. ABAX opened up by sharing their context, their culture, and their challenges. That openness is what allowed Alva to tailor every part of the engagement so it felt natural in the ABAX context. Participants noticed. The feedback reflected it. Shaping the approach together, committing to the long term, not delivering a workshop and walking away.
"We hadn't done anything like this before. Having an Alva expert to partner with, to think through what assessments to use, how to present it, and how to adapt it to our context. That's what made it work."
— Meagan Gundersen, Learning & Development Specialist, ABAX
The data put a name to things leaders already sensed but hadn't been able to articulate. Decision-making emerged as a collective challenge - a tendency to want all the information before committing, which slows progress when speed matters. That insight shifted conversations from vague concern to something concrete and actionable.
The group showed strong alignment around warmth, compassion, and helping others grow. A clear focus on setting direction and breaking goals down across the organisation. Resilience across the board. Knowing this gave leaders something real to anchor their development to.
For the first time, ABAX has a common language for what great leadership looks like - tied to specific behaviours and grounded in data. That reference point is now being integrated into performance assessments, so leadership expectations don't just get defined once at a gathering. They become part of how ABAX develops leaders going forward.
"Research-backed, data-driven insights that allowed us to have one language to speak with our leadership team to make our philosophy, our framework, practical and actionable for every leader to grow and develop."
— Meagan Gundersen, Learning & Development Specialist, ABAX
When leadership development is built on shared data rather than individual experience alone, the conversations change. Less ambiguity. More common ground. Leaders who might otherwise push back on feedback find it easier to engage when the starting point is research, not opinion.
ABAX opened up fully to the process. They shared their context, their culture, their challenges. That complete openness is what made it possible to build something that felt genuinely theirs. Participants noticed it in the room. The feedback reflected it. When both sides commit to making it work together, the outcome does too.