— About Executive Excellence Group

Where strategy, execution, and the human reality of leadership come together.

Executive Excellence Group works with boards, executive teams, and leaders navigating consequential decisions, organisational complexity, and change. We bring together executive advisory, leadership development, workshops, and facilitation. A human lens runs through every engagement.

"Human leadership enables performance."

—Our philosophy

This belief sits at the core of everything we do. Organisations perform best when leaders take care of their people. Clarity, trust, and psychological safety are not soft concepts. They are essential conditions for accountability, execution, and resilience.

— Our approach

Three principles.
Every engagement.

We help leaders navigate constant change, increasing scrutiny, and competing priorities across both private and public sectors.

Human leadership

Leaders who build trust, maintain clarity, and support their people through pressure and complexity. Because organisations succeed when their people feel supported, respected, and clear on what matters.

Human leadership

Disciplined execution

Clear priorities, strong governance, and delivery approaches grounded in the organisation’s capacity to deliver. This creates focus, strengthens accountability, and helps people sustain performance through complexity.

Disciplined execution

Real transformation

The measure is what changes in practice. Better decisions, stronger execution, and results that last. We work with leaders to make sure change is realistic, understood, and supported by the people responsible for delivering it.

— What we bring

Two decades of experience. One clear point of view.

We bring an independent perspective, ask the questions that matter, and help leaders find a practical way forward.

Executive experience

Senior leadership experience across Microsoft, AWS, Gartner, and complex government and enterprise environments.

Executive experience

Senior leadership experience across Microsoft, AWS, Gartner, and complex government and enterprise environments.

Technology and transformation fluency

A practical understanding of cloud, data, AI, operating models, and the organisational conditions needed to turn investment into value.

Technology and transformation fluency

A practical understanding of cloud, data, AI, operating models, and the organisational conditions needed to turn investment into value.

Government and board perspective

Direct experience of public accountability, governance, stewardship, and the different responsibilities carried by executives and boards.

Government and board perspective

Direct experience of public accountability, governance, stewardship, and the different responsibilities carried by executives and boards.

Leadership capability

Proven frameworks for strengthening confidence, judgement, executive presence, and performance under pressure.

Leadership capability

Proven frameworks for strengthening confidence, judgement, executive presence, and performance under pressure.

— Leadership & experience

Cindy Schwartz
Founder & Principal

Our clients value clear thinking, sound judgement, and an approach that balances ambition with realism and results without exhausting their people.

Background

Microsoft · Gartner · AWS

EXPERIENCE

20+ years in senior leadership Australia and the US

sECTORS

Federal & State Government · National Security & Defence · Financial Services · Technology · NPO · Start-ups

aLSO

Founder, EXCEED Leadership Pty Ltd

Forthcoming book

You Were Never Behind: What They Never Told Leaders About Confidence, Capability, and Staying Power. Expected release late 2027.

Learn more & register interest

Cindy Schwartz founded Executive Excellence Group after more than two decades in senior leadership across technology, advisory, and the public sector in Australia and the United States.

Her career includes director-level roles with Microsoft across Asia-Pacific and Japan, C-suite advisory work at Gartner, General Manager roles with Citadel Group, and leadership of Digital Innovation and Customer Solutions for AWS in Australia and New Zealand. She also served as Amazon’s Emotional Intelligence Lead across Asia-Pacific and Japan.

What connects that experience is working where high-stakes strategy and operational reality come together. She works across public and private sectors and understands the different pressures leaders face in each. She is an experienced board member and non-executive director across the social enterprise and start-up sectors.

Cindy has spent fifteen years mentoring and developing leaders in technology and business with a particular focus on helping women leaders. That commitment led to the founding of EXCEED Leadership, EEG's dedicated leadership development practice, and her forthcoming book.