the grounded LEADER
An ongoing advisory partnership for founders at an inflection point.
This engagement is for founders who are ready to stop relying on instinct alone and start building the explicit leadership systems that unlock consistent execution and scalable decision-making.
We work with founders at inflection points to design the decision-making, leadership, and organisational systems their company needs to scale with clarity and intent.
In this engagement, we work with you to:
Clarify how decisions are actually being made in your organisation
Update your leadership logic so it scales with complexity
Translate instinct into a conscious system of leadership patterns
Strengthen the way your team actually works, not just how you think about leading
You walk away with a clear map of how leadership works in your company and a practical advisory rhythm that keeps execution strong as the organisation grows.
You’re building a company with ambition and intent. one that holds its value as it scales.
Growth eventually stops being a question of effort and becomes a question of design. More decisions. More interfaces. More dependencies. More ways for things to break.
If everything still runs through you, if priorities keep shifting, if the organisation feels heavier instead of stronger, that is not a motivation problem.
It is a systems and leadership architecture problem.
Founder instinct can only carry a business so far without structure beneath it.
Arc Studio partners with founders at this inflection point.
We turn instinct into leadership systems and people architecture that reduce friction, sharpen execution, and allow the company to move forward without constant pressure from the top.
When this is the right choice
Choose The Grounded Leader when:
You feel the company is getting heavier on you
You can see the problems but can’t diagnose the system clearly
You want to evolve how you lead before you install bigger company systems
You’ve done a clarity session and want deeper ongoing support
When this is NOT the right choice
Not the best fit if:
You only need a one-time diagnostic (choose Clarity Intensive)
You are ready to redesign the company’s operating system end-to-end (choose Organisational Architecture Engagement)
What makes The Grounded Founder different?
Most engagements solve for one level:
Founder psychology
Team dynamics
Strategic execution
We work across all three.
Through the Arc Method™, we work with founders to build alignment and performance across:
Self: clear judgment, grounded decisions, emotional resilience under pressure
Team: standards, performance, trust, and accountability in how the team actually works
Company & Brand: structure, priorities, and leadership systems that scale without losing coherence
This full-spectrum approach means the right conversations happen in the right order, and changes actually hold.
Meet your coach & advisor
Federica De Cillis, Arc Studio Founder & CEO
I am a Leadership & Operating Systems Architect, working with founders at the most demanding moments of building and scaling a company.
I have designed and delivered award-winning leadership development, people strategy, and high-performance systems inside companies that have grown into multi-billion-dollar businesses.
But most importantly, I have been there myself.
I have experienced burnout twice. Once as a leader during a period when my company was scaling 3x in 18 months. The second time as a founder with a thousand ideas and no one to act as a true sounding board. In both cases, my judgment became foggy and anxiety showed up in different forms, most often in the mornings.
That experience changed how I think about leadership.
My commitment to staying clear-headed under pressure led me to develop a set of non-negotiable practices and decision habits that allow leaders to operate steadily through intense growth, uncertainty, and complexity.
Not as an escape from leadership, but as a way to sustain it.
Professionally, I specialise in inflection points where leadership decisions, performance, and team dynamics begin to compound in the wrong direction. This includes moments of leadership friction, performance breakdowns, communication misalignment, cultural drift, and the structural instability that often emerges as companies scale
words from incredible founders
Fede transformed my leadership and company in six weeks.
Before working with Federica, I felt unclear about where my time and attention were best spent. I was wearing too many hats, holding decisions that didn’t need to sit with me, and gradually losing touch with my creative instinct.
Federica helped me clarify my true areas of focus and identify what could be delegated without loss of quality. The result was a level of direction and calm I hadn’t experienced before.
— Founder, Luxury
Fede turned the invisible into the visible in just one session.
“Arc Studio helped me stabilise the team at a moment where growth was outpacing clarity. It was one of the highest leverage interventions I made that year.”
— VC-backed founder
There is truly no one who does what she does.
We were moving fast but debating the same decisions repeatedly. Working with Fede made my decisions, leadership role, and expectations explicit. The business didn’t slow down. It sped up.”
— Founder, Series B SaaS
The value was not advice. It was judgement. I gained the ability to say what mattered, what didn’t, and what needed to happen next.
— First time founder in Luxury
By designing your grounded LEADERship system
Your company can stay focused under pressure, make better decisions as complexity increases, and sustain high performance without depending on constant urgency or heroics.
In 3 months of hand-in-hand work, we will:
Design and pressure-test a bespoke Grounded Leadership system tailored to how you and your company actually operate.
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Surface current and future pressure points without letting urgency distort judgment.
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Strengthen strategic perspective so it holds under speed, complexity, and change.
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Build clarity into a repeatable leadership habit, not a situational response.
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Assess company dynamics and team setup, addressing structural gaps before they compound.
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Conditions for Joining the Program
You are an Entrepreneur with an existing small or medium-sized business.
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You lead a team, or are about to, and understand that leadership systems matter early.
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You understand that meaningful progress often feels uncomfortable before it feels clear.
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You value discretion, depth, and long-term thinking over quick fixes.
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You are willing to examine how your leadership shows up under pressure, not just your strategy.
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I only work at this level with a small number of founders each quarter, following a personal conversation to ensure the work is genuinely useful at this stage of your Founder journey.
your Questions, Answered.
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You will meet personally with Federica 1-1 via online sessions tailored to your rhythm and preferences. In person sessions across Europe can also be provided for in depth support.
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You have direct access to Federica for rapid feedback and an instant strategic sounding board.
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Yes. Add-ons are available. Federica can support or lead selected high-impact moments, including offsites, goal-setting, leadership alignment, hiring decisions, organisational design, and other critical inflection points.