When a leadership program has already been running successfully for four years, the fifth year carries a different kind of expectation.
The benchmark is already high. The audience knows the format. The internal stakeholders expect something bigger, sharper, and more relevant. The program cannot feel like a repeat. It has to create renewed energy, deeper engagement, and stronger business connection.
That was the challenge when EY partnered with SimuRise for its flagship leadership initiative, Polaris.
The organization wanted to deliver a powerful, customized, multi-location leadership experience for leaders, managers, and associates across geographies. The program needed to work not only in one room or one city, but across India, Sri Lanka, Manila, and a virtual cohort that included participants from Poland.
In the video testimonial, the EY stakeholder shares how Solomon Salvis and Team SimuRise understood the expectations, curated the experience, delivered the right messaging, and executed the program successfully across locations.
What stands out clearly from the testimonial is this: the experience was not slide-heavy, lecture-led, or classroom-style. It was interactive, engaging, activity-based, and deeply memorable for participants.
As the speaker shared, teams across locations were “super happy” and “super excited” because the program did not feel like a teacher standing at the front of the room delivering instruction. Instead, participants experienced leadership through activities, movement, discussion, reflection, and practical takeaways.
That is what made the intervention different.
The Business Need: A Scalable Leadership Experience With Consistent Impact
EY required a leadership learning experience that could deliver consistent outcomes across multiple geographies while remaining relevant, customized, and engaging for each participant group.
The program needed to support key leadership behaviors, including ownership, collaboration, accountability, playing to win, AI readiness, and self-leadership. It also needed to help participants reflect on how they show up under pressure and how their behaviors affect team and business outcomes.
The challenge was not only the size of the initiative. The real complexity was maintaining learning quality across different cities, formats, cultures, group sizes, and participant profiles.
The engagement included one virtual program and six in-person programs, reaching close to 1,000 participants across locations such as Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Colombo, and Manila, as well as a virtual session connecting participants from Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Trivandrum, and Poland.
For a program of this scale, the design had to be immersive, the facilitation strong, and the execution flawless.
How SimuRise Designed the Learning Experience
SimuRise designed the intervention as a cohesive leadership transformation experience using business simulations, experiential learning, facilitated reflection, and action planning.
The journey began with a virtual leadership kickoff using Diamonds of Amazonia, a virtual business simulation designed to help geographically dispersed teams collaborate, make decisions, manage resources, and work toward shared outcomes. The virtual session generated strong momentum and demonstrated that experiential learning could be highly effective even when participants were not in the same room.
The in-person rollout then followed across multiple cities, featuring a full-day immersive format. The morning sessions used The Search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, a powerful business simulation that helps teams experience collaboration over competition, trust, planning, resource management, and shared success.
The afternoon sessions focused on Self-Leadership through Square Wheels and Round Wheels, where participants reflected on what was slowing them down, what behavior needed to change, and how they could become better versions of themselves at work.
This combination allowed participants to first experience leadership behavior in action and then reflect on how those behaviors connected to real workplace challenges.
What the Video Testimonial Highlights
The testimonial highlights three important aspects of the SimuRise experience.
First, the program was highly customized. The speaker mentions that, through discussions with Solomon and his team, they curated a program that aligned with the audience, the leadership message, and the experience EY wanted participants to take away.
Second, the program was executed across multiple locations and geographies. The intervention covered five different events in India, one event in Sri Lanka, and another in Manila, Philippines. This required strong coordination, consistency, facilitation capability, and operational discipline.
Third, the learning experience was engaging and different from traditional training. The speaker specifically notes that participants were happy because there were no heavy slides and no teacher-like learning format. Instead, the program was interactive, energetic, activity-led, and full of practical takeaways.
This is exactly where SimuRise’s strength lies: creating leadership learning experiences that participants do not just attend, but actively experience.
Behavioral Shifts Observed Across Locations
Across the virtual and in-person programs, participants experienced important leadership behaviors in a practical and memorable way.
They saw the power of collaboration over individual brilliance. They understood how ownership and accountability directly affect outcomes. They reflected on what it means to play to win, not just participate. They discussed AI readiness and how technology can support better planning, execution, and future-focused thinking.
The simulations made these insights real because participants were not only listening to leadership concepts. They were living through the experience.
Some of the key behavioural themes included:
- Moving from role-based thinking to outcome-based leadership
- Recognizing that collaboration creates stronger results than isolated effort
- Understanding that playing to win requires alignment, speed, and shared purpose
- Seeing AI as an enabler for better planning and execution
- Reflecting honestly on personal behaviours that affect team performance
- Connecting simulation behaviour to workplace action
This is why experiential learning works. It allows participants to see their own behaviours clearly.
Operational Excellence at Scale
Delivering a leadership transformation initiative of this size required more than good facilitation. It required planning, logistics, coordination, and discipline in execution.
SimuRise delivered seven programs across multiple geographies with zero delays and zero defects. More than 125 kg of simulation material was transported across locations, while maintaining consistent learning quality in every city.
The rollout included 97 participants in the virtual kickoff, 68 in Chennai, 202 in Kochi, 192 in Bengaluru, 419 across two Gurgaon programs, 95 in Colombo, and 103 in Manila.
This scale matters because large organizations often worry that experiential learning may lose depth when delivered across multiple locations. This engagement proved the opposite.
With the right design, facilitation, and execution, experiential transformation can scale without compromising participant experience or learning impact.
The Role of Solomon Salvis and Team SimuRise
This leadership intervention was led by Solomon Salvis, CEO of SimuRise Learning Pvt. Ltd.
Solomon’s facilitation style combines high energy, business context, storytelling, reflection, and practical leadership insight. His ability to translate leadership concepts into lived experiences helps participants connect deeply with the learning.
The testimonial also reflects the strength of Team SimuRise. A multi-location project of this nature cannot succeed through one person alone. It requires an aligned team that understands the learning design, manages logistics, supports participants, maintains energy, and ensures consistency across locations.
That is what SimuRise brought to this engagement.
Why This EY Engagement Matters
This engagement represents one of the largest and most complex leadership transformation initiatives delivered by SimuRise.
It shows how business simulations and experiential learning can be used at scale for large corporate audiences. It also demonstrates that leadership development need not be limited to slide-based learning, classroom lectures, or passive sessions.
When leaders and managers learn through simulations, reflection, and action planning, the impact is stronger.
They remember the experience.
They discuss the insights.
They connect behaviours to outcomes.
They leave with practical takeaways.
That is what makes experiential learning powerful for leadership development.
Conclusion: Experiential Leadership Transformation at Scale
The EY testimonial captures what SimuRise stands for: leadership learning that is engaging, practical, scalable, and behaviour-focused.
This was not just a series of training events. It was a multi-location leadership transformation initiative that helped participants experience collaboration, ownership, accountability, AI readiness, and a playing-to-win mindset.
For organizations planning large-scale leadership interventions, this engagement shows what is possible when learning is designed around experience, reflection, and application.
To explore business simulations, experiential learning workshops, leadership interventions, or large-scale corporate training programs for your organization, reach out to marketing@simurise.com, call Annie at +91 9082381193, or visit www.simurise.com.
