You've built the business and the numbers hold. Growth now depends on the conversations.
As a business scales, conversations connect across rooms and over time. What matters to an investor may be different from what matters to a customer, a partner, a board member or your team. The work is to understand what each person is weighing, see what is holding a decision back and stay agile in your thinking and responses as the conversation changes.
Not every conversation needs an ask. Being useful and memorable, offering a perspective or making a connection can build the relationship that matters later. When there is a decision to make, the aim is to earn the other person's trust and confidence, make it easy for them to see why it matters to them, and make it easy to say yes.
- Understand what matters to the person across the table
- Read the dynamics, earn trust and hold your authority under pressure
- Stay agile in your thinking and responses as the conversation changes
- Make it easy to see why it matters to them and to say yes
- Be useful and memorable, and build beyond a single transaction without always having an ask
AI can help you prepare and explore different perspectives. It cannot have the conversation for you.
The ENGAGE Method® is the stakeholder influence method for tech founders and CEOs. It turns experience on multiple sides of the table into learnable human skills for high-stakes conversations. One-to-one advisory applies those skills to the conversations you are having now, working on some or all of them according to the people, situation and decision involved.
"Having worked closely with our founders over many years, Solvej understands the stakeholder conversations that determine whether great companies go on to scale."
Northern Europe's largest tech startup ecosystem
I’m Solvej Biddle.
I've spent more than 30 years on multiple sides of the table.
Thirteen years in corporate and commercial law at two major City firms, Chambers recognised. Then a multi-investor-backed business of my own, scaled across five continents, managing every kind of stakeholder from banks and manufacturers to teams and global retail partners including British Airways, John Lewis and Amazon in the UK and USA.
These days I am an active strategic adviser, mentor, board member and angel investor, as well as the UK Ambassador for Tech Nordic Advocates, Northern Europe's largest tech startup ecosystem. So I know what the people evaluating you are weighing, because I've been the one weighing it.
I work with founders, CEOs and senior leaders one to one, in the rooms that matter most.
Two ways to work together.
For a conversation that matters now: an investor meeting, a customer still deciding, a partner conversation or a discussion with your board. We work on the skills the situation calls for, from reading the dynamics and answering the risk behind a question to making it easy to see why it matters to the other person, with the ask and the decision clear where relevant.
For work that connects across conversations: a raise, a customer relationship, a partnership or a negotiation across several rooms. We work on some or all of the stakeholder influence skills as the situation develops, helping you earn trust, respond with agility and make the path to a decision clearer, while building beyond a single transaction.
How it works.
Purchase your session and you'll set your password at checkout, so there's no separate login to hunt for.
You'll find your session waiting in your account, with the booking link inside it. Choose the time that suits you.
You have your own private portal which you can return to at any time. It will include my notes and everything relevant to our conversation.
For longer or more complex engagements.
Some work needs more than a few hours. Executive advisory for a senior leader shaping their next chapter or working through a complex situation, a working session with a leadership team, or structured access to The ENGAGE Method® applied to what the business is actually dealing with.
My bespoke packages start with a conversation about what you need to achieve. Please get in touch with me at:
[email protected]
Working with me directly isn't the only route.
The ENGAGE Method® is my full online programme: thirty lessons across six modules, built from three decades in these rooms. It gives you deeper, structured learning in the stakeholder influence skills: reading the dynamics, earning trust and credibility, holding your authority under pressure, persuasion without manipulation and building beyond transactions. One-to-one advisory works on the skills and situations that are live for you; the programme takes you through the method in depth.
