Trellis, a commercial office furniture dealer navigating a workplace landscape reshaped by AI, hybrid work, and shifting client demand, partnered with The Mav Group during what its CEO, Will Payne, described as the best year in the company’s history.
Mav delivered an integrated engagement — executive coaching for the CEO, leadership operating-system work for the business, and an executive search that placed a new VP of Finance — designed to capitalize on that momentum and turn it into sustained growth.
The result: a more self-aware CEO leading with greater authenticity, a leadership team aligned around clearer accountability, and a key executive hire who was integrated into the team before his first day.
The Challenge
Most leaders come to coaching from a crisis. Will came from a peak. Trellis had just posted its strongest year, the talent bench was strong, and the business was moving fast. But Will felt a gap between the company’s performance and its operating discipline — the team was, in his words, “operating in third gear and going really, really fast” when fifth gear was available.
Three challenges sat underneath that intuition:
- Will wanted to grow as CEO and be positioned for what was next before circumstances demanded it of him.
- Top talent needed stronger support, clearer systems for accountability, and clarity of ownership.
- Trellis needed to make a critical hire—VP of Finance—where fit mattered as much as credentials.
The risk in a season like this is invisible: things are going well, so the cracks are easy to ignore — until they aren’t.
Our Approach + Process
Mav’s engagement with Trellis brought together two practices that most firms keep separate: leadership development and executive search. The CEO coaching and the VP of Finance search ran in parallel, and their overlap was precisely what made each piece work better.
Coaching the leader, not just the role
Rather than starting with the CEO’s calendar or company org chart, the work began inside. Mav’s coaching approach helped Will understand his leadership patterns in real time, using tools like the Enneagram and Leadership Circle Profile™ 360 not as static assessments, but as launchpads for deeper self-awareness, feedback, and ongoing growth.
Building the structure to match the talent
As a counterpart to the self-awareness work underway, Mav built a leadership operating framework that aligned ownership, direction, and accountability — putting the right people in the right seats with a shared destination ahead.
Connecting coaching to the search
The coaching work provided a deeper understanding of Will’s leadership, positioning Trellis to hire a VP of Finance who would be the right strategic partner and cultural fit. Using Mav’s multidimensional assessment tools and process, the new hire was someone the team already understood and who was ready on day one.
The Outcome
Eight months in, Will describes the difference as night and day — with outcomes visible in three key places.
A transformed CEO in the chair
Will began making faster, clearer decisions — moving beyond peacekeeping and engaging in the tough conversations and productive conflict that drives traction.
A team that treats feedback as fuel
As the structural work surfaced the cracks and the coaching work gave Will the capacity to address them, his leadership team stepped into greater responsibility and began receiving feedback as a source of growth.
A VP of Finance ready on day one
Because Mav deeply understood the company, the team, and the need, the new VP of Finance stepped into the right seat, ready to go — compressing the integration curve and raising the bar for what a successful search can deliver.
In Will’s Words
“From where I was eight months ago, as a leader, as a person, husband, father, to where I am now — it’s night and day. I want to keep going.”
“What got you here today isn’t going to get you where you want to go. Having a coach walk alongside you is a way to not leave it to chance.”
“We couldn’t mess this hire up. We engaged The Mav Group, and honestly, I could have hired every candidate they presented. The depth of what they gave us — personality, fit, how someone shows up in different situations — meant we already knew who this hire was before his first day.”
— Will Payne, CEO, Trellis
What's next
Coming off your best year and wondering what fifth gear looks like? Let’s talk about the leaders, the systems, and the search that gets you there.