ABOUT ADAPTIVEX
Building resilient organizations for a changing world.
We’re passionate innovators and disruptors with substantial experience in innovation, growth and change – and a pretty schnazzy toolbox too.
We believe in the power of all organizations – no matter the size, age, or industry – to evolve, adapt and build resilience. Through training and structured facilitation, we help make organizations awesome and empower their people to solve meaningful problems and adopt new human-centric ways of working.
We get that change isn’t easy. It’s a journey with all sorts of ups, downs and all arounds. That’s why we take a partnership and collaborative approach with our clients, co-creating a strategic action plan and supporting each step of the journey.
Together is always better at AdaptiveX.
Our Values
Our values make up the fabric of our internal culture, and the unwavering framework from which we base all of our decisions.
Meet the team
Leah Oliveira
Co-Founder & Managing Director
A 17-year communication and engagement professional, Leah has always been an intrapreneur dedicated to helping organizations build meaningful engagement opportunities, collaborative cultures, and environments that facilitate growth.
Having worked in the public, private and non-profit sectors, Leah’s covered a lot of ground! Some of her broad experience includes leading innovation and change management, marketing communications, government relations, recruitment/engagement, fundraising and brand management. She’s worked in a variety of fields, including consumer, international economic development, and post-secondary education.
Leah holds a BA in English Literature & Critical Theory (Trent University) and a Master’s degree in Management, Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Queen’s University, Smith School of Business). A self-identified learning addict, in addition to her degrees, she holds multiple post-graduate, Graduate and professional certificates (we won’t bore you with those details – check out her LinkedIn for that). She’s currently completing a Systems Thinking certificate from Cornell University.
Leah spends as much time as possible cuddling her dog Lola, hanging out with her kids (before they discover she’s no longer cool), and reading whatever she happens to get her hands on. She also co-organizes Design Sprint Network MeetUp.
Carlos Oliviera
Co-Founder & Principal Facilitator/Trainer
Carlos is an experienced entrepreneur, facilitator, and innovation coach for both ventures and enterprise organizations. His professional raison d’etre is to help teams make better decisions, build solutions that delight customers, and to support organizations as they innovate at-scale.
Nearly 20 years in, Carlos has a ton of experience in strategic product development and innovation leadership. His expertise also includes applying design thinking, lean startup, and agile practices in organizational contexts.
Ever the entrepreneur, Carlos started his first of several companies as a teenager, building computers and coding out of his home. Following university, he was a founding member of an enterprise learning management start-up that successfully scaled and was ultimately acquired by OpenText in 2011. Since, Carlos has worked with Fortune 500 companies to help implement transformative innovation and agile practices and cultures.
In his spare time, Carlos drinks probably way too much coffee, loves a good glass of Douro wine, and fits in travel wherever he can. He also co-organizes the Toronto Design Sprint meetup.
He holds a BA in Economics/Computer Studies, and an MBA from Queen’s University, Smith School of Business.
Kim Jose
Head of Brand and Experience
A communications, marketing, and public relations professional with over seven years experience engaging with public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Her work is dedicated to connecting the dots between the vision and mission of any organization with the people it aims to serve.
Her professional passion is uncovering the big why and connecting it to the details that matters to stakeholders. Starting her career in the not-for-profit sector, Kim knows every number and data has a story to tell. She is dedicated to understanding the data and making it relevant to her target audience. She loves to ask questions that uncovers the why and so what.
From organizing international conferences, to creating memorable content, to supporting senior management transform culture, she developed a versatile toolbox to support organizations raise brand awareness and loyalty.
Kim holds a bachelor’s degree in humanities and political science from University of Toronto where she developed the foundation of her curiosity. She always challenges herself to go beyond her scope and continues to develop her skills and experience within and beyond professional contexts.
In her spare time, Kim keeps incredibly busy with volunteering and peer mentorship. She’s also an exuberant sports fan, an avid reader, and an aspiring dog lover. Oh, and she also organize and co-facilitates the Design Sprint Network Meetup.
Arev Hakobyan
Facilitator, Trainer, and Coach
Arev is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and agile/innovation coach across both enterprise and smaller organizational environments.
Arev’s professional mission is to humanize processes, spread empathy in everyday practices and promote continuous learning.
Arev offers 15 years of experience in software and product development where she has directly applied her knowledge of design thinking, agile, and innovation practices as a coach, facilitator, and trainer to help teams collaborate more effectively, and to bring new or improved products to market, faster.
Over her career, Arev has worked in reputable enterprise environments, such as Angus Systems, Knowledge First Financial, and Workfront. Arev is an active Agile and Innovation community member, involved in the co-organization or as a speaker/facilitator in a variety of Meetups in Toronto and (virtually) in Armenia.
Arev holds a BA in Economics from State Economic University. She has acquired critical agile licenses, including Kanban, Scrum and is an ICAgile licensed practitioner and trainer. Arev is also a certified Design Sprint Facilitator.