Zana Goic Petricevic
Senior leaders often know what bolder, more purposeful leadership looks like. The harder problem is that under pressure, most default to the behaviours that block it; self-protection, managed risk, and emotional distance. Standard leadership development addresses skill gaps. It rarely addresses the identity assumptions and internal patterns that prevent leaders from acting on what they already know. The gap between the leadership organisations articulate and the leadership they actually practise is not a training problem.
Founder of Bold Leadership Culture and author of the SOUL Framework®, Zana Goic Petricevic works with senior leaders and leadership teams to close the gap between the leadership they intend and the self-protective habits that prevent it.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Zana Goic Petricevic
- Her SOUL Framework® is a registered trademark with a published book at its centre; not a proprietary slide deck, but a structured, repeatable model that organisations can extend through her books well after the engagement ends.
- She holds faculty standing at several executive coaching, team coaching and leadership development schools – CRR Global, Leadership Circle, and PwC’s Academy – operating inside the credentialing infrastructure of the field, not simply alongside it. It is a level of institutional standing most keynote speakers in this space never reach.
- She works as a leadership transformation expert within the leadership programmes of organisations including PwC’s EMEA network and Capgemini University, meaning her frameworks have been tested inside some of the most scrutinised professional development environments in the world.
- Her corporate background in the oil and gas and pharmaceutical sectors gives her a specific kind of credibility with executives who are impatient with leadership development that hasn’t been tested under commercial pressure.
- Named clients include TikTok, Capgemini, UniCredit, PwC, Sandoz, and Zalando – a spread that validates her capacity to work across sectors and leadership cultures, not just a single industry vertical.
Biography highlights
- Founder of Bold Leadership Culture, an EU and UK-based leadership development and coaching consultancy
- Author of Bold Reinvented (built around the trademarked SOUL Framework®) and Leading on the Edge
- Faculty member of CRR Global; Leadership Circle Ambassador in Europe; Leadership Circle Profile certification coach
- Coach, tutor, and mentor within PwC’s EMEA coaching and leadership development programmes
- Named client engagements include PwC, Capgemini, TikTok, UniCredit Bank, and EU institutions
- Certified CPCC, ICF-PCC, and ORSCC; trained Immunity to Change facilitator
- Holds degrees from the University of Zagreb and Leeds Beckett University; corporate background in oil and gas and pharmaceutical sectors
Biography
Most organisations have leadership frameworks. What they frequently lack is leaders willing to operate inside the discomfort those frameworks require. Zana Goic Petricevic’s work starts precisely at that gap: between the leadership organisations articulate and the leadership they actually practise.
Her approach is anchored in the SOUL Framework®, a trademarked model for leadership development introduced in Bold Reinvented: Next Level Leading with Courage, Consciousness, and Conviction. Her second book, Leading on the Edge, extends the argument, mapping the specific self-protective patterns – passivity, over-control, emotional distance – that cause high-capability leaders to default to safety over impact. Together, they form a coherent body of published work on why capable leaders underperform under pressure.
Before founding Bold Leadership Culture, she held senior corporate communications and marketing roles in the oil and gas and pharmaceutical sectors – industries where the distance between stated and actual leadership behaviour carries a direct commercial cost. As a faculty member of CRR Global and Leadership Circle Ambassador in Europe, she operates inside the credentialing infrastructure of the leadership development field, not simply adjacent to it. She also works as a coach and programme contributor within PwC’s EMEA leadership network and Capgemini University.
Her client base includes Capgemini, TikTok, UniCredit, PwC, Sandoz, and Zalando, alongside EU institutional programmes and professional services firms. The consistent thread is leadership teams with strong technical or commercial capability whose default behaviours – at the individual or collective level – are quietly limiting what the organisation around them can achieve.
Based in the United Kingdom and working in English and Croatian, Zana partners with organisations across sectors including technology, professional services, banking, and pharmaceuticals.
Key speaking topics
- Leadership capability in complexity and change
- Self-protective leadership patterns and how to shift them
- Bold leadership culture
- Change management and organisational transformation
- Relationship-centred and conscious leadership
- Executive development and coaching frameworks
- Scaling leadership capacity across teams
Ideal for
- C-suite executives and senior leadership teams facing significant cultural or strategic transition
- CHROs and L&D leads designing or commissioning executive development programmes
- Leadership teams in professional services, banking, technology, and pharmaceuticals where risk-aversion or protective behaviours are limiting performance
- Organisations seeking a leadership development speaker whose work can be extended through structured frameworks and published material
Audience outcomes
- A working understanding of the SOUL Framework® and how it applies to their specific leadership context
- Ability to identify the self-protective patterns – in themselves and their teams – most likely to undermine leadership effectiveness
- Practical language and models for initiating the bigger, bolder conversations that leadership teams typically avoid
- A reframe of change from an obstacle to be managed into a leadership context to be exploited
- Concrete approaches to developing others and building leadership capacity across the organisation rather than concentrating it at the top
Talks
Challenges leaders to transform how their organisations approach change, replacing resistance and reactive management with deliberate, strategic adaptation.
Key takeaways:
- How to shift the internal conversation about change so that teams lead transitions rather than manage them
- A proactive mindset that repositions change as competitive opportunity rather than organisational crisis
- Practical behaviours and frameworks for leading effectively when the outcome is not yet clear
Examines how a culture of boldness drives innovation and leadership depth, and what leaders must change in themselves before they can change the culture around them.
Key takeaways:
- The specific leadership demands that differentiate complex, high-stakes environments from stable ones
- How to integrate awareness, authenticity, and accountability into everyday leadership practice
- Actionable strategies for shifting organisational culture from protective thinking to game-changing leadership
Challenges leaders to act on their boldest thinking rather than waiting for conditions, confidence, or consensus that never fully arrive.
Key takeaways:
- A stronger sense of personal agency for seizing meaningful ideas and driving change
- Models for moving from hesitation into courage: learning to risk, trust, and act in pursuit of real impact
- Clarity on how the everyday decisions leaders make either shrink or expand what is possible for their organisations
Makes the case that relationship-centred leadership is the only sustainable route to scaling leadership capacity without burning out the people at the top.
Key takeaways:
- Why relational leadership is not soft management but a structural requirement in fast-moving, complex organisations
- Techniques for identifying and removing the barriers – internal and interpersonal – that block authentic leadership growth
- Practical steps for developing others and distributing leadership capacity rather than hoarding it
Videos
Testimonials
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| Europe | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| Middle East & Africa | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| South America | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| US West Coast | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| Virtual | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |