Alex McAdam
Lean CI leader. Improvement designer. Based in Aargau, Switzerland.
Where it started
For most of my early adult life I was performing a version of myself I thought other people needed to see. I was good at it. But performing a self and actually having one are different things... and at some point, the gap between them becomes unsustainable.
That gap closed around my late twenties. The identity I had built stopped working. What came after that period was not planned... but it was the most important education I have ever had in how change actually works from the inside out.
What changed
I found Kaizen at an airline job where someone gave me a chance I had stopped believing I deserved. It clicked... not just as a professional method but as a personal framework. Small, consistent steps. Evidence over assumption. Respect for the person doing the work. I applied it to myself first, then to every organisation I entered after.
What it built
I led Lean transformation at Swiss International Air Lines for five years, including as Manager Kaizen and CI for the whole airline. Then a cantonal hospital... 24 wards, 800+ staff. Then global manufacturing. I was trained in Kaizen in Japan by Shingijutsu, the firm that codified the Toyota Production System globally.
I hold an MBA in Coaching, Mentoring and Leadership, a BSc in International Management, and a BSc in Biological Sciences. I am married and have two children.
Organisational and personal transformation are two sides of the same coin.
You cannot sustainably change an organisation without changing the people inside it.
What this is built on
Change is automatic. Improvement is intentional.
Decay happens without effort. Progress does not. Sustained improvement requires a system and does not happen by accident.
You can only change with the people, not at them.
Every person knows something you do not. Their knowledge is valuable. Their respect is non-negotiable. The job is to earn trust and think together.
Vulnerability is the mechanism of change, not a side effect.
A tree is green and soft in growth. A crab must lose its shell to find a larger one. You cannot harden your way into transformation.
Evidence over assumption.
Go and see. Measure what matters. Small experiments, observable results, iterate. This applies to a production line and to a morning routine.
You do not have to hit rock bottom to rise.
But if you have, that is not a disqualification. It is the most thorough education in how change actually works.
Freedom, not prison.
The systems I build are meant to create freedom: clarity, momentum, space to think. Not bureaucracy, not performance theatre, not a new set of rules to perform.
Work together
On the organisation. On the person leading it. Or both.