FR_ME — Coaching for senior leaders in transition

The work

Leadership begins with perception.

Every act of leadership starts with an interpretation of reality. We never encounter the world directly — we encounter it through frames. Frames make experience useful; they also make it partial. The more successful a frame has been, the harder its limits are to see.

Success compounds: you observe, you adapt, you add — layers of intelligent adaptation that quietly distance you from the quality of attention you once had. And now even the tools perform: they agree, they flatter, they complete your thought in your direction.

Leadership becomes difficult when reality changes faster than the frame interpreting it. The work is to see the edge of the current frame, look past it, and recover the ability to choose — so that clearer perception becomes wiser action.

A first executive committee appointment
A first mandate as CEO
An international move
A new organisational culture
A change of CEO
A setback, a reinvention

The practice

One engagement. One transition.

Five to eight months, built around a structured arc of conversations, with access between them when something is live. The pace is agreed in contracting and follows the transition. The fee covers the transition, not the sessions — there is no meter on attention.

The work is demanding. It examines what you think, and how you came to think it. It suits leaders who want clarity more than reassurance. Beneath everything, the offer is simple: a presence that does not perform.

First, contracting — naming what we are working on, and how we will know
Then, the work — no template; conversation, observation, psychometrics when they serve
Between, the line is open — when something is live, so is the access
Finally, a deliberate close — the work continues; the engagement ends

Engagements are self-funded or sponsored by the leader's organisation. Sponsors are part of the contracting, never part of the room.

I take on a handful of clients a year. The quality of attention requires it.

Founder

Twenty years building leaders — and the rooms where careers are decided.

I have spent two decades building leadership, as Chief People Officer and Global Director of Strategic Talent: helping CEOs compose complementary executive teams that fit the moment the business is in; recognising leaders before results make it obvious; scaling leadership development across Brazil, the United States, and Europe.

I have also sat in the rooms where executive teams are reviewed, and followed hundreds of leadership transitions — some succeeding exceptionally, others, with equal talent, going exceptionally wrong. The difference was rarely capability. It was whether what the leader saw still matched what everyone else could see. FR_ME exists for that moment of disconnection — helping leaders see clearly again, through a different kind of conversation.

Tommaso Spinelli

Notes

Reading, carefully.

Occasional notes on books about leadership, judgement and perception. Published when there is something to say.

Begin

It starts with one conversation.

A single call. You bring the situation; I bring attention. By the end, we will both know whether this is the right work — and either of us is free to say it isn't.

Request a conversation

Or write directly: hello@frme.it