Navigating Change: Leadership, Career, and Resilience with Claire-Marie Boggiano

The ability to adapt, reinvent oneself, and lead with empathy is essential in our complex, uncertain world. Based on these themes, Claire-Marie Boggiano, a Chartered Engineer and founder of Lurig Ltd, built an extraordinary career. She led an engaging session at the Rome Business School.

From Finance to Change Leadership

Claire-Marie began her career in financial services. She soon founded Lurig Ltd, an entrepreneurial consultancy specializing in organizational change and leadership development. With over 20 years of experience, she collaborated with giants like Rolls-Royce, AstraZeneca, and BASF. Her clients also include public sector bodies such as the NHS and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The Career Journey: Non-Linear, but Rich

During the session, Claire-Marie illustrated the modern professional path. She defined it as a “Squiggly Career” — a non-linear, winding journey. This contrasts sharply with the traditional idea of simple progression. Continuous transitions, explorations, and reinventions make up this journey. To help participants navigate this complexity, Claire-Marie introduced two powerful tools:

• The Life Line: A graphical tool that invites participants to map the highlights (Highlights) and challenges (Lowlights / Challenges) of their life and career on a timeline. It serves to recognize how past experiences, both positive and negative, have shaped their competence and resilience.
• The Ikigai Concept: The Japanese concept of “reason for being” or “reason for waking up in the morning” was presented as the key to finding satisfaction and purpose. Claire-Marie invited participants to reflect on the intersection of four fundamental areas:
  1. What you love (Passion & Mission): which brings joy but might lack financial reward.
  2. What you are good at (Passion & Profession): which provides comfort but can lead to a feeling of uselessness.
  3. What the world needs (Mission & Vocation): which ensures delight and fulfillment but might lack sustenance.
  4. What you can be paid for (Profession & Vocation): which offers excitement and contentment but with a sense of uncertainty.

The meeting point of all four of these areas represents the Ikigai. This optimal condition balances passion, mission, profession, and vocation. The Ikigai is an essential exercise for anyone facing a career transition in a constantly changing world.

Resilience: Beyond the “Bounce Back”

Resilience was a central theme of the session. Claire-Marie defined it as the quality that lets people bounce back stronger after life knocks them down, rising from their ashes. In summary, resilience is the ability to “bounce back” (bounce back). More proactively, she called it “Bounce Forward” (Bounce Forward).

Claire-Marie explored how to tackle personal and professional challenges. Progressing, not just returning to the starting point, is key. Resilience is an active process that involves several essential actions. These include developing flexibility in planning and the ability to withstand shocks. It is fundamental to adapt to change and pursue one’s goal. One must also proactively anticipate risk and protect weak points.

To build this vital competence, Claire-Marie presented 8 Resilience Practices, which include:

• Physical Exercise
• Sleep
• Mindfulness
• Reappraisal
• Savoring
• Gratitude
• Social Connections
• Contact

Finally, she encouraged a crucial self-assessment: checking emotional and energy levels. This means moving from “I feel great!” to the condition of “I’m empty.” The reflection invites self-care. It means identifying what drains energy, establishing boundaries, and focusing on activities that recharge.

Change and VUCA: Living in a Volatile World

We live in a VUCA era. This acronym effectively describes the current context: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

Claire-Marie dissected each of these elements, illustrating the challenges they bring:

• Volatility (V): Refers to rapid and unpredictable changes, without clear patterns or trends.
• Uncertainty (U): Is linked to frequent disruptive changes, where past experience is no longer a reliable guide for predicting the future.
• Complexity (C): stems from the multitude of intricate and interconnected changes in technological, social, geopolitical, and ecological spheres.
• Ambiguit (A): Concerns the lack of clarity about what is real or true, making it difficult to predict the impact of any action or initiative.

The “Waves of Change” context  Claire-Marie illustrated why we must face this scenario with flexibility, vision, and the ability to anticipate risks. Change, she emphasized, is undeniably difficult — but immobility is fatal. This requires a proactive approach to leadership and career.

The Future of Work: The 100-Year Life

Life and working careers are lengthening. Claire-Marie highlighted how the traditional, linear Three-Stage Life (“Learn, Work, Retire”) is no longer sustainable or sufficient. Instead, she presented the concept of the Multi-Stage Life, where learning, work, and change intertwine in continuous cycles. This new approach features a dynamic flow that includes phases of Education, Exploration, Transition, Employment, and Self-employment. It is a working life understood as a Portfolio a mix of paid and unpaid work.
To thrive in this constant cycle of change, the learning mindset must evolve. Learning in a top-down and mechanical way is no longer enough. The new approach requires the capacity to Learn to Learn, Un-learn & Re-Learn.

Therefore, the key skills to develop are socio-emotional and cognitive. They are essential for modeling and practicing collaboration in a world with infinite information. These include critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and the ability to collaborate.

The session concluded with an invitation not to give up. Claire-Marie assured participants that ‘we are closer than we think.’ She left two key questions as food for thought: what they had learned during the meeting and, in light of this, defining the next step to take.