Member since March 2026
Francesca Ciucci is the founder of FC Studio (workshops, keynotes, cross-cultural business advisory) and founder of the OCW brand. Italian-Canadian, Calgary-based, polyglot in English, Italian, French, and Spanish, she has built businesses across eight countries in fourteen years, with nearly a decade in Fortune 500 marketing and startups. Psychology degree, forthcoming nonfiction author on decision-making and non-linear careers, featured in Pretty Women Hustle and across podcasts in the UK, US, and continental Europe. She mentors women founders globally and speaks on international business, non-linear careers, and the psychology of building a business that lasts.
I'm passionate about helping ambitious women — especially founders and leaders — protect their judgement and their voice in a culture that rewards constant optimisation and quiet self-abandonment. My work sits at the intersection of psychology, cross-cultural business, and the honest emotional economics of building something that lasts. What I care about most is giving audiences permission to think again — slower, more deliberately, and on their own terms.
Fourteen years ago I left Italy with a Psychology degree and no plan beyond curiosity. Since then I've built businesses across eight countries — inside Fortune 500 marketing teams, in startups, and now inside my own studio. Somewhere around country six I realised the algorithm-shaped version of ambition I'd been chasing was quietly making me boring, and everyone I admired was quietly making the same mistake. That's the story I now tell on stage: what the constant push to optimise costs the people doing the interesting work, and what changes when you defend the space between the idea and the KPI.
I'm Italian-Canadian, polyglot in four languages, and non-linear by design rather than accident. I grew up between cultures, studied Psychology because I wanted to understand how people actually decide anything, and spent a decade inside Fortune 500 marketing and startups before founding my own studio out of Calgary. Along the way I picked up forty-five passport stamps, published a bilingual short story collection, and started writing a nonfiction book on decision-making in an AI-accelerated world. My speaking work is where all of it lands — cross-cultural leadership, non-linear careers, and the psychology of building a business that ages well.
Fourteen years ago I left Italy with a Psychology degree and no plan beyond curiosity. Since then I've built businesses across eight countries — inside Fortune 500 marketing teams, in startups, and now inside my own studio. Somewhere around country six I realised the algorithm-shaped version of ambition I'd been chasing was quietly making me boring, and everyone I admired was quietly making the same mistake. That's the story I now tell on stage: what the constant push to optimise costs the people doing the interesting work, and what changes when you defend the space between the idea and the KPI.
I'm Italian-Canadian, polyglot in four languages, and non-linear by design rather than accident. I grew up between cultures, studied Psychology because I wanted to understand how people actually decide anything, and spent a decade inside Fortune 500 marketing and startups before founding my own studio out of Calgary. Along the way I picked up forty-five passport stamps, published a bilingual short story collection, and started writing a nonfiction book on decision-making in an AI-accelerated world. My speaking work is where all of it lands — cross-cultural leadership, non-linear careers, and the psychology of building a business that ages well.