Aervio

Aervio, founded in 2016 are a fast growth SaaS company in the business travel sector. With a vision and technology to revolutionise the way companies book, manage and optimise their travel.

When they began working with HIC they were suffering a number of growth related challenges, including:

• Lack of funding
• Difficulties scaling the product
• Over-reliance on the CEO for decisions
• Loss of key accounts
• Loss of key members of the team

Having been through the Scale-able Leadership Flow in the programme, CEO Santi Montero was beginning to lead and cultivate his exec team to a new level of potential and performance.

While they had clear long term vision, they identified through the Organisational Health Audit that short term clarity was a key problem. We began work here by:

1. Building an "alarm" system to track and solve real time deviations in activities impacting P&L
2. Aligning and communicating a singular strategic focus
3. Establishing laser focused company OKRs
4. Developing dynamics to work as a cohesive team
5. Building a weekly ritual to fix critical tactical issues

The team met for the first time out of the office. Two days in the countryside, fully focused on important, non-urgent work.

There were moments of passionate debate and others of deep connection. After the two days, the team left saying - we came as a group, we leave as a team.

During the months that followed they practiced and honed their skills, unblocking their most important tactical issues to drive transformation in specific aspects of the business.

One afternoon, I received a call from Santi: that was the worst weekly tactical meeting I've had!

Less than 10 minutes later, he knew what went wrong - We need to be hyper-specific about our issues. And come better prepared.

The next week he called:

We just had the best 90 minutes ever! We've solved an issue which has blocked us for months!

After 3 months of practicing the weekly tactical meeting, the team dynamics score shot up from an average 6/10 to 9/10.

After less than 12 months working with HIC, Aervio went from 5% monthly growth, full of pains, to 20% monthly growth, with a total sense of control.

The team was on fire and they were poised to raise Series A funding. Shortly after, the pandemic hit and revenues fell off a cliff!

Thanks to clear thinking, it took less than a month to secure grants and loans, arrange furloughs and get ready for the rocky road ahead.

Next they engaged the team. Running short, daily all-hands meetings. They created radical transparency and connected personally with their team.

The response? Enthusiasm and all out support!

The exec team focused on strategic aspects: Purpose, vision and strategy alignment. They made strategy corrections and focused back on core business.

They also re-imagined sales and product to be fit-for-pandemic times.

From the sales re-structure, they captured 14 new large accounts in the height of the crisis, one of those accounts with Doctors Without Borders.

On the product side, with a tiny team of two, they were able to increase bookings within the platform by 30%.

Since January 2021 Aervio are back to their old ways, growing at 20% month on month with a company that is profitable for the first time ever!

The company is focused in three core aspects:

1. Elevating the profession of corporate travel agents
2. Helping clients optimise the ROI of business travel
3. Tackling social and environmental issues from travel

Working with High Impact Culture, I'm excited about our future, not just as a business, but about the impact we can have on our teams and on the world (CEO, Santiago Montero)