Strategic Session
for Flowwow
Aligned 17 marketing leaders and built a three-year action plan in 3 days offline
About Flowwow
Flowwow is an online gifting platform that enables fast and convenient gift ordering from local stores in over 1,200 cities worldwide.
The Request
CMO of Flowwow, Oleg Egorov, reached out with a request to organize an offsite session for the marketing leadership team in Istanbul.
It was important to the team:
- Align on the company's ambitious 3-year goals so all leaders share one strategic direction
- Develop a realistic plan — with priorities, key milestones, and risk assessment
- Strengthen collaboration between leaders, given the team is distributed and not all are well-acquainted
What's Inside
Main goalUnite the marketing team around one big goal and define the first steps to achieve it in each area.
How We Prepared
Discussed the request with the client
Clarified business goals, team composition, and the format of the sessions.
8 interviews and 1 survey with participants
Gathered context on team dynamics, individual expectations, and the most relevant topics to address.
5 organisational meetings
Coordinated logistics, programme details, and adapted the agenda based on collected data.
Wrote the action plan together
Documented agreements, defined follow-up steps, and set a date for a post-session review call.
"In the final group, there were 17 people. Three days of sessions for 17 people is a real challenge for a facilitator, so I brought in my colleague Yana Obach to help. Yana now lives in Istanbul, so she not only provided invaluable assistance during the session but also gave participants tips on things to do in Istanbul."
Three Days, Three Focuses
Day 1: Getting to Know Each Other
Despite working in the same department, not all of Flowwow's marketing leaders interact regularly or know each other well. The company is distributed — which makes it even harder to build real team connections.
All participants had a request to understand who is responsible for what, and identify natural areas of collaboration across teams.
In the afternoon, we worked with a timeline: visualised the past year and a half, and marked the achievements everyone is proud of — moments that contributed to the company's growth.
Day 2: Journeying into the Bright Future
The second day opened with presentations on the future of the company — from CEO Slava Bogdan, CMO Oleg Egorov, and brand manager Renata Mikhaylova.
Together we synchronised our vision for the brand's development in both the Russian and global markets, and created a working list of questions and topics that were relevant to resolve while everyone was in the room.
Day 3: Plan, Risks, and Wrap-Up
At the end of Day 2, participants asked to dedicate time to discussing risks — so we opened Day 3 with exactly that. We listed competitive, legal, economic, reputational, and technical risks, then worked through them using the ROAM framework:
Resolved
After discussion, we realised this is not actually a risk.
Owned
No action needed now, but someone takes responsibility to monitor.
Accepted
A reality we acknowledge and choose to live with.
Mitigated
We need a plan for these — they require concrete action.
After that, we finalised the plans, agreed on a date for a follow-up call, and wrapped up the session.
"In the feedback at the end, many participants highlighted two things:
1. How important it was to spend three days together in offline discussions without laptops.
2. That thanks to the detailed action plan, they now clearly know what to do next — and thank God, this session didn't just end with discussions."
Session Results
A productive working alliance formed between the facilitators and the group — participants arrived motivated, engaged, and ready to do the real work.
- Strengthened horizontal connections and mutual trust among 17 employees
- Formed a clear vision of company goals for the next 3 years
- Created a list of hypotheses to explore in the next six months
- Developed a 32-point action plan to achieve the set goals
- Defined areas of responsibility for leaders and their teams
A united team with a shared plan
17 leaders left Istanbul aligned on goals, clear on responsibilities, and with a detailed roadmap — not just intentions.
What the Client Said
Many thanks to Sasha for the high-quality organisation and facilitation of the strategic session. The idea had been brewing for a while — initially I wanted to organise it myself without involving a facilitator.
After watching a few YouTube videos and reading Lisa Kay's book 'Strategic Session', I reached out to our CEO. After a brief discussion, he approved bringing in a facilitator.
Sasha and the Co-Actors team are great professionals. If you've never run such sessions, it's absolutely worth trying — especially if your company is growing rapidly in a competitive market.
This was the first strategic session for the marketing team at Flowwow. I believe we have one of the strongest marketing teams in Russia — so I had concerns about whether a facilitator could handle it.
The team is very smart and fast. The number of sticky notes on the walls grew almost exponentially — it was almost chaotic. But Sasha and Yana managed to structure everything clearly and professionally.
Another great touch was the follow-up call a month later. It really helps keep the agreements alive and relevant. Thank you!
