When Aptia Group, a Business Administration Service, brought together its UK and India leadership teams, the goal was to boost leadership effectiveness across communication, accountability, trust, and resource use. SimuRise stepped in with an experiential simulation that helped leaders walk away with real strategies, stronger alignment, and practical insights they could immediately apply.
The Leadership Challenge at Aptia
Aptia Group is a global leader in pension administration and employee benefits, serving more than 1,100 clients worldwide. With teams spread across the UK, US, Portugal, and India, Aptia is committed to delivering operational excellence while building strong leadership across borders.
As part of their leadership offsite, Aptia wanted to create a high-impact intervention focused on improving key leadership behaviors.
The company identified five critical areas to strengthen:
- Communication
- Ownership
- Trust with Leadership
- Accountability
- Maximizing Resources
To turn these abstract ideas into action, they partnered with SimuRise to deliver a program designed to enhance leadership effectiveness in real time.
The Solution: Strategic Simulation with Real-World Learning
SimuRise conducted its flagship simulation,“The Search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine”, for 30 leaders and managers from Aptia Group’s India and UK teams.
This 4-hour session wasn’t just about participation. It created an energetic, gamified experience where leaders were faced with dynamic business scenarios requiring:
- Strategic thinking
- Collaboration across functions
- Risk management
- And effective decision-making
By placing leaders in a simulated environment, the experience mimicked the pressure and complexity of real-life leadership, making it a powerful method to improve leadership effectiveness.
Key Outcomes from the Simulation
The leadership simulation resulted in direct, behavior-level outcomes that matched Aptia’s strategic goals:
1. Strengthened Communication
Leaders learned how to communicate more clearly and consistently across roles and geographies.
2. Enhanced Ownership & Accountability
Participants demonstrated greater initiative and follow-through during decision-making phases.
3. Built Trust with Leadership
The collaborative nature of the exercise encouraged transparency and connection with senior leadership.
4. Optimized Resource Utilization
The simulation forced teams to manage time, information, and resources effectively, directly impacting performance.
Each of these results contributed to Aptia’s broader goal: boosting overall leadership effectiveness across its teams.
Learning Accomplishments: Strategy Meets Practice
Through this experiential intervention, leaders didn’t just talk about leadership; they practiced it.
They experienced firsthand how communication gaps, unclear ownership, or misused resources can derail success. The simulation encouraged leaders to reflect on their behavior and make strategic shifts, learning lessons that translate directly to the workplace.
It was a reminder that leadership effectiveness isn’t built in boardrooms; it’s built through shared challenges, decision-making, and learning by doing.
Conclusion
Aptia Group’s leadership offsite was a clear success. Participants walked away with deeper self-awareness, better collaboration, and concrete strategies to lead with purpose.
The overwhelmingly positive feedback proved that experiential learning is effective. SimuRise played the role of both guide and catalyst, helping Aptia’s leaders strengthen their leadership effectiveness through the power of simulation and games.
