What you probably did not know is that Growthroom has been around since 2012. Really, not kidding. Kasvuhuone osuuskunta (without any English name yet) was founded almost eight years ago to support impact organizations and entrepreneurs. So the focus spun mainly around social entrepreneurship and creating good in the world through socially conscious businesses. From early on we also wanted to create learning experiences that would engage the audience fully and make a lasting impact on the participants’ lives. To do this on a larger scale we began to organize innovative and engaging coaching courses in Helsinki. This is the exciting beginning of our story.
Times and focuses change, but great names stay. A few years ago we decided to create a stronger red thread around the strengths of our remaining and new members. This thread has since been strongly about facilitating growth on individual and organizational levels through diverse methods of coaching and training. Around the same time, due to our international audience, Growthroom Cooperative got its English name and a more solid international identity.
What’s up today, Growthroom?
Today we are a growing team of 5+ professionals representing different areas of expertise, with a growing partner network of professionals around Europe. In short, our mission is to spread growth in the world. We are a community of professionals dedicated to boosting passion for growth. We deliver inspiring and impactful learning and growth experiences to individuals, teams and organizations so that they can strive for their best. We do not only want to make personal and professional growth fun and impactful, but we are also committed to making it accessible to everyone.
As our top 3 values - making a difference, love for life and dedication - suggest, we like things alive! Some of the most meaningful things we have engaged in recently are delivering open and in-house coaching and coaching certification trainings, creating new content and online trainings (which you’ll get to see and experience soon), supporting amazing individuals in their personal and professional growth, and running mini-coaching programs all the way from Paris to Los Angeles. “It knocks our socks off that we get to do what we love so much. We are willing to go the extra mile to create a lasting change and we are happy that individuals and organizations we work with acknowledge this” says Anna-Riikka, one of the co-founders.
What is so cool about being a cooperative?
Being organized as a cooperative means flexibility: some members work full-time through Growthroom whereas some have other projects and work going on at the same time. When a new client project comes up we gather up a dream team suitable to tackle the case at hand - combining our own members and some of our skilled partners, when needed. “Being a cooperative basically means being surrounded by a strong network of like-minded and skilled people who share the same mission and ideas” says Pauliina, chairman of the board. “We have been actively developing more efficient ways of working, borrowing ideas from the agile world. Huddles, working in 2-week sprints and having our own coaching chapter are some of our recent successful experiments.” The special advantage of being a cooperative is its shared ownership - we are all in this together. Every member has an equal voice.
What’s up next, Growthroom?
Our vision for the next years is to grow our team and network of trainers and coaches and to keep rocking in the fields of personal and professional growth and development, creating a world where everyone is a change agent.
Do you have any questions for us? Anything you are curious to know? Pop us a message!
In this blog series we make you familiar with us and introduce you to our precious members - your personal growth agents. Up next will be Anna-Riikka, one of the original members of Growthroom and our coaching superstar!