My Red Couch Talk with Afsheen Ismail Wey
Afsheen Ismail-Wey has spent over 20 years asking the same question in different rooms: what actually makes people – and the organizations they work in – trust each other enough to grow together? That question took her through senior Talent and Organization roles at Abbott Laboratories and Mondelez International, where she led talent strategy across dozens of countries and rebuilt performance systems following the Kraft/Cadbury merger.
Ten years ago, she took that question independently, founding Phoenix, a leadership and HR advisory practice now based in Zurich, working with Pharma and FMCG clients across Change Management, Transformation, Talent Management, Culture, Organization Effectiveness, Coaching, and DEI – work that has driven double-digit gains in engagement and Net Promoter scores for her clients.
Afsheen is a PCC-credentialed coach, holds an MBA from Baylor University, and has had her contributions published by Forbes. She has lived and led in eight countries and speaks English and Urdu fluently, with German and Arabic at an intermediate level.
She is currently growing The Phoenix Quest, an AI-powered leadership program for senior leaders ready to rewrite the internal template that got them here – now expanding from an individual offering to include a corporate one.
DOWNLOAD the Phoenix Quest Diagnostic here:
The Phoenix Quest Diagnostic – https://phoenix-inner-spark.lovable.app/diagnostic
Phoenix Advisory — https://phoenixadvisory.ch
The Phoenix Quest — https://phoenixadvisory.ch/the-phoenix-quest
https://www.linkedin.com/in/afsheenismailwey
🛋️ My Red Couch Talk with Afsheen Ismail-Wey
Afsheen Ismail-Wey is a PCC-credentialed executive coach, a Forbes contributor, and the brilliant mind behind Phoenix Advisory. Having led global talent strategies for giants like Abbott Laboratories and Mondelez International (where she steered the massive Kraft/Cadbury talent integration), Afsheen has spent two decades deciphering a single question: What makes people and organizations trust each other enough to grow together?
Now, she’s bringing that exact blueprint to the future of AI. In this episode, Afsheen introduces The Phoenix Quest—a groundbreaking 6-month leadership journey where executives build their own AI Twins to unlock deeper self-actualization and clear out old leadership templates.
Key Talk Takeaways:
- Living “Out in the Light”: How growing up with censored books in Saudi Arabia inspired Afsheen to live transparently and clear smoother paths for women and minorities in tech.
- The 42% Trust Premium: Why building cultural trust is the defining factor in whether your company’s AI transformation succeeds or implodes.
- Building the Plane While Flying It: Lessons in risk-taking and productive naivety from a global career spanning eight countries.
- Meet Your AI Twin: How The Phoenix Quest integrates advanced AI simulation with deep executive coaching to scale leadership impact.
- The Black Belt Mentality: How a mother with a black belt in karate passed down the ultimate framework for resilience.
🎥 Watch the full talk here: https://youtu.be/7xRCVKcc0Xc
