Ivna Curi
I build the capability for senior leaders to tell the people above them what they don’t want to hear, and still get a decision, without the backlash.
I trained as an engineer at Brazil’s Air Force university, and then spent years as a strategy consultant at A.T. Kearney, where I noticed that he smartest people in the room routinely didn’t say the thing they knew.
They didn't raise the concern, issue, or idea because they continuously assessed what saying it would cost them, and that calculation told them: don’t speak.
That calculation is the most expensive thing in most organizations, and almost nobody is working on it.
WHAT I DO NOW
BRAVE DIRECT is the senior leader communication system I built to solve that gap. It’s a behavior-change cohort for Director-to-VP levels, applied to on-the-job decisions during the program, and it produces evidence a CHRO can read.
The target state is Calibrated Directness: said, heard, and moved to a decision, with standing intact.
I’ve taught leadership communication to more than 7,000 leaders at organizations including Moët Hennessy, Qualcomm, Autodesk, Akamai, Walmart, and KPMG.
THE RESEARCH
I’m currently interviewing 100 L&D leaders and senior leaders for TOO DIRECT, publishing Q1 2027. The question: what happens when a Director or VP has something the executive team doesn’t want to hear.
The premise is that leaders who go quiet aren’t short on courage. They’re running a cost calculation and getting it right. Backlash and silence are two outcomes of the same gap. It isn’t a courage problem. It’s a calibration one.
About the research
ALSO
Speak Your Mind Unapologetically — 450+ episodes on leadership communication.
The Unapologetic Voice — my first book.
TOO DIRECT — publishing Q1 2027.
Speaking — TEDx. Three-time SHRM speaker. Forbes contributor.
Brave Culture Institute
The cost of what isn't said.
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Weekly briefing on leadership behavior
change at the senior level.