Crayne is your secret weapon
/strategy that actually lands
Ideas and strategies without implementation are just unrealized dreams. We walk the walk with operations management expertise. We are known to have levelled-up leaders, managers, and organizations, for having the "perfect blend of strategic and implementation skills", planning for realistic implementation and making moves that count towards your big hairy audacious goals.
Incrementally minimizing risk and increasing success along the way paves that path towards healthy ROIs. We are known to have catalyzed directional shifts within companies and helped "dodge bullets".
/insights & data that matter
/masterful facilitation & management
Expertise cultivated from experience. We are known for lasting impact by meeting teams where they are at and for leaving individuals feeling better equipped to move forward and thrive.
Your
Secret
Weapon
Carolyn Van
Principal Consultant
Carolyn is an experienced and award-winning Senior Leader, Program Director, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and Educator to business leaders, creators, builders, entrepreneurs and the organizations that wish to cultivate them. She is known for seeding lasting impact and being trusted with big work, big clients and big hairy audacious goals.
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Leaders and change makers turn to Carolyn to deeply tackle challenges, identify, work through, plan and build for opportunities - no matter how undefined or complex they are. This is part of Crayne's origin story.
She brings more than 12 years of working directly with senior leaders; building and leading teams and departments; growing and scaling up businesses; and designing and building projects, services and programs from ideation through to launch to nationwide scale-up and expansion. Carolyn has been responsible for creating, rolling out, managing and scaling up programs and services that nearly 1 million (and counting) individuals representing global populations have participated in.
Her deep and wide insights; technology meets business expertise; future-forward design and development capabilities; and having the"perfect blend of strategic and implementation skills" allows her to be a powerful catalyst for transformation, change, and scale-up.
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With a global reach, impact and systems-engineering lens, she takes investing in our future seriously. She has been responsible for designing, managing and scaling up skills and capacity-building programs and services that hundreds of thousands and counting have participated in. Carolyn has helped lead implementation framework design and development that private and public educators across Canada are integrating in their business and technical development environments today.
For more than 15 years Carolyn has been featured by, delivered keynotes, advised, led, and created for a long list of corporations, national broadcast news outlets, professional associations, and not-for-profits across various industries and sectors including healthcare, arts and culture, telecom, Internet of Things (IoT), human resources, education and consumer packaged goods (CPG). Amongst this list includes Microsoft, World Trade Centre Toronto, AfriFursa, Toronto Board of Trade, Google, Intelligent Automation Summit, Product Management and UX/UI Associations, Clearco, Community-Based Research Canada, CTV News Channel, Young Adult Cancer Canada, Rogers Wireless, Global Entrepreneurship Week, Scotiabank, First Nations Tech Council, Boys & Girls Club - National (Canada), The Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Lean Startup Machine Conference, Oxfam Canada, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and the House of Commons Parliament of Canada. ​
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With a strong regard for the role small and medium-sized ventures have on innovation and as an experienced entrepreneur herself, Carolyn has worked with hundreds of technology-powered startups and innovation incubators and accelerators across North America and Europe.
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With her in depth knowledge of the impact the creative arts has on education, innovation, shifting perspective and behaviour and the interconnectedness of macro-ecosystems, Carolyn has also advised and helped create programs for leading organizations in the creative arts industry including the Ontario Arts Council, CFC (Canadian Film Centre) Media Lab, and Guelph Arts Council.
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On occasion, she is available for educating and speaking opportunities on breaking down barriers, business strategy and management, innovation, leadership, emerging technologies, scale-up, program and product design and management. Her approach is both visionary and practical - leaving audiences and participants inspired, with questions to ponder and moves to make.
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what they said
Carolyn is a very knowledgeable, inventive, and reliable individual. We are really fortunate to have her as a trusted advisor for our venture. She has opened up many doors for us in our customer and business development stages.
She is not afraid to be honest and tell you if and when you are not on the right track, which is quite refreshing to hear. We really love the way she tackles problems as they present themselves with an out-of-the-box approach.
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- Aram, Founder & CEO of Crowdlinker
Through her energy, bold-nature, persistence, awesome ideas and wide connections we just rocketed forward.
Carolyn is thoughtful, empathetic, focused and always knows how to plan and execute the next move.
I would love an opportunity to work with Carolyn again - and so should you.
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- Declan, CTO & Agile at LeanIntuit
We went from developing a product that people could see themselves using to developing a product people will use and that all stemmed from us making a conscience effort to hone in on the value that we were aiming to deliver to our consumers.
This is what Carolyn is able to bring to the table.
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- Yohannes, Product Strategy at Google
Carolyn is an incredible force of human nature. Her approach to strategy, leadership and growth allows you to see everything a deeper and thoughtful level than before.
Her expertise allows you to learn and develop while also creating and building at the same time. She is an incredible partner and thought leader in the higher ed and tech space and continues to be an example of what focus and dedication can yield.
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- Alysha, DEI Strategist and CEO at CultureShift HR
Carolyn was my Director. Her support, expertise and trust had a huge impact on the success of our team. Working with her felt natural - it was easy, fun and stimulating. Anyone would be lucky to have Carolyn on their team. She’s definitely one of the best leaders I’ve had the chance to work with.
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- Ariane, Senior Manager at Shopify
