BRINGING AN INTRAPRENEUR TO THE BOARDROOM

A REMINDER OF WHAT IT MEANS TO LEAD CHANGE FROM WITHIN

There is a character we don't often hear about.

One who rarely stands on the main stage. One whose work happens beneath the surface, quietly bridging what seem like opposing interests and creating possibilities where others see impossible choices.

* The intrapreneur: Heart driven individuals working inside large organizations, striving to create value for business, people, and the planet.

They navigate complexity, challenge the status quo, and build trust across worlds. It is not an easy place to be.

This year, the League of Intrapreneurs travelled to Athens with our CEO, Jolana Jamuna Amara, and the Action Fellowship cohort to attend the World Beautiful Business Forum.

During Act Three, Clash of the Titans, one of the Forum's five main-stage acts, influential voices from business came together in a theatrical exploration of boardroom dynamics, revealing the different roles, tensions, and perspectives that shape decision-making inside organizations. Amid these well-known figures, Jolana chose to bring another voice into the room. The voice of someone who is rarely seen on stages, yet whose work quietly shapes organizations from within.

She introduced that voice through the following letter. Originally written from the perspective of an anonymous intrapreneur, it was later amplified and co-created by members of the Action Fellowship cohort.

“Perhaps the real work is not only to change destructive, dysfunctional systems, but to remember how to be in relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with the world we are shaping.”

ANONYMOUS INTRAPRENEUR

A LETTER FROM AN ANONYMOUS INTRAPRENEUR

I have been stretched by the heaviness of the world these past few years. The loss I’ve been feeling is immense, but I hadn’t realised it was lingering in my body, unattended.

The pressure to deliver. The uncertainty we are navigating. The sense that the ground beneath us is constantly shifting.

I’ve been reflecting on how often we confuse commitment with the need to carry everything on our own. As if taking on more were always the greatest proof of responsibility. As if sustaining a commitment meant never slowing down, never doubting, or never showing vulnerability.

As intrapreneurs, we often sit in between worlds. Between what is and what could be. Between institutions and imagination.

It can be a lonely place.

But something in me opened up. I didn’t know it existed. A place where I participate, empathise, act, but in an entirely new way.

For a long time, I thought being an intrapreneur meant pushing harder. Being more strategic. Making the case more convincingly. Navigating systems that were never designed for the kind of change we speak about today.

And perhaps even proving something. To my organisation, my peers, myself.

But something shifted in me. I began to see that the work is not only out there. In the systems, the strategies, the innovations. It is also here. In how I relate. How I listen.

How I hold complexity without rushing to resolve it.

I believe leadership and change are not born only from pressure or the pursuit of results, but from the courage to create spaces where people can breathe, belong, and truly contribute.

Transformation does not happen only through strategy, structure, or planning; it also depends on intention, on how we listen to one another, understand both - business and human needs, and build relationships grounded in trust, even while navigating complex systems.

Perhaps the real challenge is not only to move organizations forward, but to sustain what truly matters with honesty, presence, and shared response-ability.

I believe in the power of collaboration to make great things possible, and I will keep learning how to encourage, inspire, and act with integrity - not to carry everything alone, but so that together we can reach our greatest potential.

I realise I have been carrying urgency like a weight. As if speed alone could save us. As if urgency gave us the right to override everything else.

But what if the quality of our attention is just as important as the pace of our action? What if the future we are trying to build cannot be forced into existence, but must be grown intentionally, with care, with others?

Perhaps the real work is not only to change destructive, dysfunctional systems, but to remember how to be in relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with the world we are shaping.

If this is what it means to act, then I am willing to keep learning. Not just how to lead change, but how we take response-ability for the way we choose to participate in it.