Welcome to Renovah, an organisation championing The Leadership Code. Six distinct leaders sit on Renovah’s Executive Committee (ExCo). Today we meet its CEO, Ellis.

Role: Chief Executive Officer at Renovah

Years in Leadership: 22

Leadership Archetype: Visionary

Ellis is the anchor of Renovah’s long-term direction. As CEO, their leadership is defined by connecting today’s choices to tomorrow’s purpose, ensuring Renovah’s strategy, culture and competitive stance all orbit a shared vision.

That clarity is a crucial cultural stabiliser, giving people meaning, connection and an understanding of where they fit. Instead of just setting a direction, Ellis builds belief in it and equips others to cascade that belief. The result is a vision that translates into the capital allocation, stakeholder alignment, workforce mobilisation and leadership decisions that ultimately determine whether Renovah wins or falls behind.

Ellis embodies The Leadership Code’s Visionary archetype:

“Creates a compelling future by providing clear direction and clarity on goals, strategy and purpose. They provide strategic direction, shape culture, execute impactfully and inspire others’.”

What’s on Ellis’ radar

Ellis’s remit is to turn vision into organisational traction. Right now, they are focused on:

• Strategic direction: Setting Renovah’s long-term positioning in markets defined by digital disruption, AI and shifting customer expectations. Ellis ensures every major decision is weighed against its contribution to the company’s purpose.
• Cultural alignment: Embedding Renovah’s vision into leadership behaviours, communications and daily execution so that the “why” is always as clear as the “what.”
• Stakeholder confidence: Building trust with investors, regulators, clients and employees by showing how the company’s destination aligns with growth and responsibility.
• Purpose as engagement lever: Ensuring Renovah’s vision is lived across the organisation, so employees connect their work to the bigger journey, and holding leaders accountable for embedding that clarity into everyday experience.
• Future readiness: Anticipating geopolitical, economic and technological volatility, and making strategic bets that keep Renovah ahead of disruption rather than reacting to it.

What drives them

Ellis recognises that “vision” must be more than a lofty statement on the company’s website. For them, it’s the daily compass that guides tough choices, earns buy-in and ensures strategy turns into action. 

How that shows up:

• They frame every decision in terms of its contribution to the long-term destination, using vision as the filter for what gets prioritised.
• They articulate strategy in clear, practical terms that connect with employees, investors and clients, making its relevance tangible at every level.
• They treat vision as a living asset, adjusting it as conditions shift while keeping the core purpose unchanged, so the company remains both agile and anchored.

Challenges they’ve faced

Obstacle #1: Balancing vision with credibility

Earlier in their career, Ellis pushed long-term ambition without showing enough near-term proof points. As CEO, they’ve learnt that credibility doesn’t come from vision alone, it requires visible progress that convinces the board, investors and employees the destination is real.

Obstacle #2: Leading through competing priorities

As CEO, Ellis is deluged with competing priorities from every stakeholder groups, including customers, regulators, employees, executives and investors. The challenge has been filtering that noise to keep the company focused on what truly advances its long-term vision, while being decisive about what to defer or decline.

The team context

Ellis leads from the centre of Renovah’s ExCo, shaping direction while empowering others to execute. Their leadership context includes:

• The ExCo: A diverse team with each member responsible for translating Ellis’s vision into their function and ensuring delivery against enterprise-wide priorities.

• The Board: Directors who Ellis works closely with to provide clear, transparent articulation of long-term risk and opportunity.

• The wider workforce: While not directly managed by Ellis, employees look to their leadership for clarity, inspiration and a sense of purpose.

What impact Ellis has had:

• 20% increase in investor confidence scores

• 15% revenue growth in new markets

• 30% uplift in employee purpose alignment

How they got there

Ellis has strengthened their Visionary Leadership through Hanover’s targeted skills modules, including:

• Effective influence: Through development sessions, Ellis learnt how to inspire belief not just in the boardroom but across leadership teams and the entire workforce, using influence to drive alignment without micromanagement. 
• Presentation skills: Ellis sharpened their ability to communicate vision with clarity and conviction, whether addressing employees on Zoom or investors on earnings calls.
• Strategic formulation and implementation: Ellis worked with Hanover coaches to refine the art of turning vision into actionable frameworks, and purpose into delivery.

Why Ellis’ Visionary Leadership matters

As markets face the colliding forces of geopolitical uncertainty, digital disruption and generational change, organisations need CEOs who can orient people towards the future without losing sight of today.

Ellis shows that Visionary Leadership isn’t about how grand someone’s rhetoric is, but how they make purpose the organising principle of strategy and culture, while sustaining confidence in investors, employees and clients that the company is built for the long term.

Their presence on Renovah’s ExCo ensures the organisation’s direction never drifts into short-termism. While others are immersed in execution, Ellis keeps the horizon visible and aligns the board, leadership team and workforce around a shared sense of where Renovah is headed and why it matters.

Want more Ellises in your business?

Hanover helps organisations embed Visionary Leadership at the highest levels. Through insight-driven assessment, strategic development programmes and tailored coaching, we equip CEOs and senior leaders to articulate compelling futures, align culture and deliver with purpose.

Reach out to our Directors of Leadership Solutions, Brent Herman and Elle Robinson, to learn how Hanover’s Leadership Code is building tomorrow’s Visionary Leaders today.