Lianne Bridges (MBA) – Founder, Designing Transformation
“My personal mission is to help women discover their life’s purpose and provide guidance and tools to help them live it.”
A curious and adventurous seeker of truth, purpose and transformation her whole life.
Lianne Bridges received a classical business training at Canada’s prestigious schools with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Studies and Economics at the University of Western Ontario and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at the Rotman School of Management. Over the span of her 30-year career, she has managed, run and consulted on small, medium and large global organizations and initiatives across dozens of industries and sectors, including corporate, public and not-for-profit.
Early on in her career at the multi-national giants, Unilever and Nabisco, she become known for her keen aptitude in visioning, strategy and transformation. As an up-and-coming twenty-something executive, she was trained in the areas of innovation and change management facilitation and even given the title of ‘Change Agent’. To the surprise of her peers, she stepped out of the corporate world to pursue a more meaningful direction and took on the role of Canadian community engagement leader of one of the world’s largest international aid organizations – Plan International. This is where her passion for service was ignited, working on such initiatives as alleviating poverty, combating child trafficking and exploitation, and supporting women’s rights, community development and global peace.
In her mid thirties, she left the comforts of her personal and professional life in Toronto, to follow her heart and live with her husband in Montreal. With limited French, zero social or business contacts, she courageously recreated her life in her new city by starting a family and her first entrepreneurial venture. Over the next ten years, she built a successful consulting business advising such massive corporate entities as Aeroplan, Bombardier and Rio Tinto Alcan on strategy, change management and marketing, while raising two young boys.
At the age of 46, she lost her husband to cancer. She closed her consulting business and went on a journey of self discovery and traveled the world for almost a year. In that time, she sensed there was a global shift in consciousness happening and immersed herself in learning as much as possible about ancient and contemporary wisdom traditions and consciousness practices. Throughout this journey, Lianne had a unrelenting desire to return to a calling of service. With two small children to raise on her own, the practical need to earn a living was an important factor as she once again redesigned her life. This time she was committed to find a way to incorporate the sense of purpose and meaning she experienced working in the not-for-profit sector, the freedom of entrepreneurship and abundance she had experienced in business, while growing into this new, more true, more authentic person she was becoming. She wanted to spread her gifts to others and help them have more meaningful and creative lives. That is when she created Designing Transformation Productions to help individuals, entrepreneurs and leaders make a positive impact doing what they love and aligning with their highest purpose and potential.
She has taken her experience guiding organizations through strategic visioning processes and marketing, and combined this with the approach she has used to transform her own life and work to offer specific guidance, tools, a step-by-step process and community to help women step into a new level of destiny and to manifest what they were born to create. Her passion and commitment to creating conscious community has expressed itself in the community she has created called the Awakening Village – a network for the world’s change-makers to be inspired, connect, serve and be served. Lianne lives the leadership values that she mentors – optimism, presence, compassion and empathy, connection, creativity, courage, kindness, mastery, patience and persistence – and infuses them into every aspect of her teachings.
She recently published her memoir, Love Will Keep Us Alive, which recounts her own journey of awakening. She wrote it to inspire others to believe in their dreams and begin living the life we are all meant to live — one of love, passion, fulfillment and, yes, even magic.