Hello, I’m Maritsa Inglessis.
I’ve spent over 20 years in HR and People roles, across businesses of every shape and size.
From huge global organisations to small, growing businesses, I’ve seen what happens when businesses get the people side right. And what happens when they don’t.
Over the years, I kept seeing the same patterns: good businesses with real ambition, where the people side had evolved reactively as the company grew.
People were promoted into management because they were technically good at their jobs, then expected to somehow know how to lead other people.
Owners were compensating for gaps in the team, holding knowledge, making too many decisions and staying involved in things they should have been able to step away from.
Hiring didn’t always work out. Expectations weren’t clear enough. People left and nobody really understood why.
Different symptoms, same underlying problem: the business had become “people-stuck”.
Feeling like your business is “people-stuck”?
I believe your people should help you build the business you set out to create...
If you’re serious about growing a business sustainably, your people have got to be part of how you get there.
That means much more than just hiring people and hoping they work it out.
People need to understand what they’re responsible for, what good looks like, how their work contributes and where the business is heading.
Managers need to know how to manage and responsibility needs to sit in the right places, with ways of working that allow people to make decisions, solve problems and move things forward without everything continually coming back to the owner.
When these things are done well, they can make an enormous commercial difference.
They affect how well people perform, who stays, how much time the owner gets back and whether the business can actually grow without becoming “people-stuck”.
I also believe that enjoyment belongs in that commercial conversation.
A huge part of why I created The People Keeper was that we spend far too much of our lives at work - whether running a business or being part of one - for it to feel relentlessly hard.
Why should you or your people just accept the “Sunday Scaries” as a normal part of working life?
People show up differently when they understand why their work matters, feel part of something worthwhile and have the conditions to do a good job.
The same applies to the owner or founder of that business.
You probably didn’t start your business because you wanted to work 80-hour weeks, chasing up work, compensating for things that aren’t being done or carrying responsibilities you thought you’d have handed over by now.
I want to help business owners understand what is really causing their business to become people-stuck, then work alongside them to change it, so they have more freedom, more control and more confidence.
Ultimately, I want you to be able to enjoy what you’ve built.
What I’m like to work with
I care deeply about getting to the heart of what’s really going on and having conversations that actually move things forward.
I ask questions to get to the root of your thinking and will challenge assumptions if they’re not well-founded.
I’m comfortable saying what needs to be said, including telling you if you’re contributing to the problems I’m seeing in your business.
You can expect plain English, straight answers and a sense of humour along the way!