About

The Best Journey Ever is a company based in Amsterdam, offering Organisational Advisory, Business and Executive Mentorship and Intensive Trainings. We created it to explore and share learning experiences, cognitive resources and useful tools in immersive, provoking contexts, with the objective to stimulate organisations and people To Change, and do so wisely.
We like to work with those who believe that the greatest journey is one's life, and take responsibility for it.
We like to travel light and playfully, armed by the only precious luggage needed: our body, mind and capacity of expression.
We are inspired by people who create trust and collaboration. We learn from all the knowledge available around us.

Who are you?

You are a leader or an organisation that has the ambition to have a positive impact on the world.

Meet the Journey Crafter

Everyone's life should feel like a miracle, and if it doesn't we are not really giving ourselves space to be, outside definitions and expectations, and outside the custom to package people as sellable products. Let's give ourselves the space to claim what nature has in store for us, the space to take the journey, to not be sure where and how it leads, or when it will change, and be just happy with taking part in the discovery and helping others on the way.

My name is Maria Grazia Testa, and I lead impact driven transitions and transformations.

WHO AM I

Professional Resume

I have been an executive and in leading positions for more than 20 years, working with the strategy, direction and management of global and international organisations, running operations in 6 continents, with reporting teams of more than 100 people, and accounts >100M$. In 2012, after the birth of my beautiful daughter, I left corporates and I turned my skills to the not for profit sector, trying to scale that too. This led me to work more and more in the public sector, with governments and NGOs while mantaining continuous collaboration with Business stakeholders. My specialty has always been leading transitions and transformation, and change without losing the soul (which in organizations is the human capital and the intelligent network of relations it forms). I led transitions spanning from gigantic multitheatre business outsourcing processes to preservation programmes dedicated to precious world heritage. I think that words like profit, business model, scaling, impact, sustainability, leadership and commitment, can be empty marketing mirrors for the fool, or can be lived through, by people truly caring for each other and creating the conditions for collaboration and harmony, inside out, everywhere. I owe everything to my colleagues, often not so visible souls in a world of big egos, who have guided me the sweet and the bitter way, and taught me everything I know.

Scientific Interests

I have been a nerd for as long as I can remember. By age 14 my journal reports already a stunning number of 350 titles read front to back. I began my formal education studying Humanities: Classical Studies (Greek, Latin), Philosophy and Social Sciences. In the late 90s my brain got hooked on computers and networks, I became a certified Microsoft Engineer and started running IT projects, covering systems, networks, databases, infrastructure, processes, and operations, around the world. I was trained as a Project Manager, later as a Programme and Transition Director, and methodologies like ITIL, Prince, PMP and Agile, became my mother tongue, as I designed global standardised processes for corporates >20,000 employees, and trained hundreds of senior staff. When I was involved in the not for profit sector, my Social Sciences background came back, in terms of setting sustainable strategies (from human trafficking to the circular economy). At the same time I kept nurturing my studies: I developed my competencies in Psychology, specifically Business Psychology. I have been leading workshops and laboratories (and 1to1s) adopting Coaching, Systemic Approach and Constellation Theory, Theory U and Presencing, Barret Values, MBTI, and Embodiment, now for a few years, and I am extremely happy with the way these tools can function, making people progress with satisfaction. My readings include modern physics, artificial intelligence, history, history of arts, cognitive sciences, philosophy and strange esoteric stuff written centuries ago. I think we stand on the shoulders of giants, and we should never stop learning from all the knowledge already present all around us. Our work is to do our best harvesting it, and making it applicable to whatever is at hand, every day.

Personal commitments

I am since 25 years a practitioner of Dzogchen and Vajrayana, under the all encompassing guidance of my teachers, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, Yeshi Namkhai, Lopön Tenzin Namdak and Tenzin Wangyal.
Chögyam Trumpa, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Dzongsar Khyentse Norbu, Pema Chödrön and Idries Shah are teachers whom unfortunately I have not met but of great inspiration to my practice. I practice daily, attend collective retreats a couple of times per year, and personal longer retreats more often. I consider my fellows brothers and sisters.
My loyalty goes also to the shamanic tradition of the Shipibo: in 1998 I travelled to the Amazon, and stayed for a couple of months in the Shipibo Indios village of San Francisco, Yarinacocha, at a time when Indios could still live purely in union with their mother, the Forest. There, I had a new life epiphany, thanks to the forest and my teacher Don Mateo Arevalo. To date I am still very interested in psychedelic research, clinical and academical. I am not interested in the materialism of cultural (and ecological) appropriation.
In 2010 I became a mother, and still follow every day the teachings my daughter allows me to receive through the wisdom of our relation.
I hope that all the knowledge my very patient teachers have profusely shared with me, can at least somehow, sometimes, feed back into the way I can be useful, nurture, and help develop, myself and others.

FACTS

Countries where I have worked
Netherlands, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, China, India, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Dubai, New Zealand, Brasil, Peru, Cuba

Countries where I have led remote operations
France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Greece, Montenegro, Albania, Russia, Japan, Colombia, Cambodia, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, US, Mexico, Argentina

Industries where I have operated and clients I have served:
ITC and Technology: Unisys Corporation, Siemens, Cisco Systems, ST Micro
Pharmaceutics: Ciba, Novartis
Retail solutions: NCR EMEA
Consumer and Luxury Goods: Unilever, COOP, JohnsonDiversey, Moet Hennecy, Bennet
Finance: Capital One, Intrum Justitia, Visa, Paypal
Tourism: Sabre
Sustainability: Circle Economy
Human rights and development: Telefono Azzurro, INHOPE Foundation, Associazione Colore, WeProtect
Culture and Education: Shang Shung Foundation
Broadcasting: MTV Networks
Governmental: EC, UN, Europol, Interpol

Languages I (roughly) speak or read in (in order of fluency):
Sicilian, Italian, English, Spanish, Nederlands, French, ancient Greek and Latin

My latest jobs and sectors
Cross Country Coordinator - Global Development Goals
Board Member - International Buddhist Organisation
COO/CFO - Director of Operations, HR, Finance, Legal, PMO - Sustainability
Global Development and Network Expansion - Human Rights/Crime Fight
Director of Programmes - Culture and Education

MBTI
ENFJ

IT IS NOW OUR OPPORTUNITY TO FURTHER OUR CAPACITY TO APPRECIATE, FOSTER AND PROMOTE VALUES, MINDSET AND LEADERSHIP TRULY BASED ON AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE AND COMPASSION, CAPABLE TO DREAM UP A WORLD WHERE EVERY LIFE CAN LIVE THROUGH AND EXPRESS ITS FULL POTENTIAL.

The Best Journey Ever works in support of the advancement and the deepening of the Inner Development Goals, a blueprint of the capabilities, qualities and skills that are needed to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Ready for the journey? Book a call now.

Book an appointment with Maria Grazia Testa using Setmore

For more information, use our contact form.

CONTACT FORM