Claire Cassar is a natural born leader. Passionate about start-ups, while herself active as a business leader in a personal capacity, she is no stranger to the ups and downs of running a business. She has experienced first-hand what it means to start from zero, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, and building an efficient business which provides an excellent service to its customers, and a sense of satisfaction to her. Claire derived so much pride from this process, she did it twice.

A lawyer by profession, Dr Cassar worked in a number of legal and regulatory positions with large companies, local and foreign, in the electronic communications sector and IT. However, she always felt that she could do more with her life than draft contracts that others would have negotiated.

“I always saw myself as an extroverted, creative person, and there’s very little room for that working as in in-house counsel,” Dr Cassar says. “To top it all, as the legal counsel of an organisation, I was often the one telling people what they couldn’t do or highlighting risk factors, raining on their parade! I always thought I could do more, employ my creativity in a better way, as legal work was increasingly becoming stifling and repetitive,” Dr Cassar notes.

So, in 2008 she moved on to marketing and business development roles, until in 2011 she became CEO of a Swedish IT software company targeting the telecoms industry.  Subsequently In 2016 Dr Cassar embarked on a start-up journey, in partnership with her business partner and today she manages two companies which are active in the field of Out Of Home (OOH) advertising as well as an information security consultancy fit-out.

“It has been an exhilarating journey, which has allowed me to develop my business skills, but also myself as a person beyond my expectations.”

Since 2013, Dr Cassar has also been involved in Vistage, and in the past year she has taken a more active role within the entrepreneurial organisation, chairing one of the peer advisory groups. Vistage is the world’s largest executive coaching organisation for small and mid-sized businesses. For more than 60 years Vistage has supported CEOs and business owners in solving their challenges. Vistage, which welcomes some 28,000 members in 20 countries worldwide, provides confidential peer advisory groups, training and executive coaching sessions.

“I find the experience gained from Vistage is invaluable to say the least. I feel privileged to form part of a network of amazing people, who have a growth mindset and are willing to be challenged and held accountable,” Dr Cassar shares.

Vistage in fact provides a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs and business leaders to come together and share their issues and discuss opportunities. The small peer groups act as sounding boards, providing feedback and perspective on the various business matters business leaders may be dealing with.

“We know that businesspeople today are increasingly coming from very different backgrounds, often being the first in their families trying their hand at running a business. This means that entrepreneurs might not be getting the necessary support required from home or their friends. Vistage is a space for like-minded individuals who are facing similar circumstances, who can share objective and sound business experiences,” she explains.

The peer advisory groups provide a small safe space for two-way conversations, which are kept accountable for action. 

Groups within Vistage welcome around 12 individuals and meet monthly. Furthermore, members can also make use of one-on-one coaching and mentoring sessions to discuss issues they might not be ready to share at group level. Members of Vistage are also immediately exposed to a network of some 28,000 businesspersons from around the globe, with whom they will be able to share their experience but also look at business opportunities for internationalisation and collaboration.

“The immense platform can act as very fertile ground for some fantastic sharing of ideas between members from around the world. It is only natural that businesspeople will quickly start to talk business, and that’s how great ideas come to life,” Dr Cassar asserts.

Vistage offers exclusive access to content by international speakers on an endless list of subjects that are useful for personal and professional development. Members can join the conversation live, or watch recorded talks at their leisure. Moreover, Vistage organises quarterly events for the local community, also featuring international speakers. Only last week the first in-person Vistage EMEA Summit took place in Malta with attendees from all European Vistage groups as well as representatives from the organisation’s first Dubai Vistage group.

Vistage is the perfect space for entrepreneurs to grow their leadership and mentoring skills and contribute to topical discussions such as quiet quitting, servant leadership and employee attraction to attrition.

“Personally, I feel I have gained so much from my time both as a member and more recently as a chair, that it can’t be overstated,” Dr Cassar exclaims. “For instance, the international dimension of the organisation allows me to stay in touch with business leaders and other chairs from the United States to Canada to Australia as well as European counterparts, allowing me to keep abreast of developments and understand trends better. Equally importantly, contributing to a discussion between people from different areas of the economy provides me with fresh insights that I wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of. Coming from multiple industries, members are encouraged to see the issues they face differently, which is immensely useful. Moreover, it also gives a wide perspective of the economic state of play of the country and how this may be affecting business, which is invaluable for our members.”

Vistage supported its members particularly during the unprecedented disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Members had the possibility to share issues with other businesspeople as well as best practices on how they were coping with this disruption. 

“COVID was an especially hard time for everyone, but keeping businesses afloat, for most, was no easy task. Entrepreneurs and business leaders needed all the help they could get, so through Vistage we provided support in terms of discussions around working from home, business models on how the pandemic could pan out and what this meant for businesses to be focusing more on cash flow rather than profit and loss. With most of us being locked up at home, mental health also became an issue which needed support and Vistage helped on this front too.”

“Ultimately, and this is possibly the most important aspect of this organisation, Vistage is a community supporting others in their life of climb,” Dr Cassar concludes.