Julian Wong | Collective Change Institute
Julian Wong
– Former entrepreneur; worked in tech, government, and online publishing/digital media
– Passionate about building teams, developing people, and scaling organisational culture
– Overall, I’m a “Type-A Creative” – I love spontaneity and fluid creative processes, but also believe in structure and intellectual rigour
Professional Background
I consider myself a ‘deep generalist’ – I am curious about many subjects, and am always looking to make connections between seemingly unrelated fields. This has led me to spend my university years freelancing across the education, online publishing, and service industries, before co-founding Rice Media, a digital media company.
Almost overnight, I found myself in the deep end, learning to run a profitable business, manage teams and clients, and grow myself as a leader. Through this journey, I discovered what it meant to actually build organisational culture and develop people, and 5 years later, I found myself venturing into organisation design and leadership development work in Open Government Products, an experimental tech organisation. I spent 2 years here, growing the organisation from 60 to 200, while scaling culture and leadership & management practices.
Currently, I’m on a path towards designing my own career, optimising for time and financial freedom, while also exploring how my unique experiences and skillsets can contribute to the betterment of individuals and workplaces.
Coaching Specialty
– Challenges faced by leaders/entrepreneurs and people managers
– Navigating life transitions, and difficult interpersonal relations
– Seeking deeper self-knowledge, and/or alignment between the personal and professional
Personal Background
Ever since I was a kid, I have always been pre-occupied with making meaning of our human purpose and existence; understanding why I’m here and what it means to be alive. This accounts for many of my intellectual curiosities, and the fact that I spend a lot of my time reading widely. At the same time, I feel most present when doing things, whether it’s connecting with others or pursuing new hobbies (most recently rollerblading and drawing).
Growing up, I never fit in and always sought to define my own place in the world, often through work and personal relationships. This “outsider’s perspective” has helped me develop deep empathy for everyone’s individual experience of life and its challenges, and the understanding that nothing in life is black and white.
The subjects I care most about right now include: the future of work and education, organisation design, male mental health, self-leadership, product and business strategy, and visual arts.
Coaching Style
My goal is always to help my clients to deepen their awareness of who they are in order to live life to the fullest and on their own terms. Whether in the professional or personal domain, the questions I typically seek to answer are: Who are you? How do you want to show up in this world? What are your unique gifts and strengths? How can you create strategies that help you to relax into your own life and thrive?
As a coach, I do my best to strike a balance between
- Bringing a calming, compassionate presence, and often a sense of humour
- Helping clients to confront truths about themselves or the world that they’ve been avoiding
- Holding space for challenging emotions and conversations
- Building and working towards a vision of a life that aligns with who you are
Personal Philosophy
I believe that the most important work we will do in our lifetimes is to discover and become who we are. This means realising and accepting that no one is coming to save us, and that we must learn to take responsibility for our circumstances and choices, and decide for ourselves what we are willing to change in order to live more fully for the things that matter to us.
