About Denise MacDonald
25 years in the seat.
Now I help you own yours.
I was in the in-group. I had the title, the $50K bonus, the “secret” stock options that very few people in the company ever saw. And I still couldn’t get behind what I was watching happen to the people doing the real work.
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Chapter One
The Builder Who Learned the Hard Way
Long before I was advising anyone, I was building my own companies from scratch. I had wins — real ones. Multi-million dollar revenue, teams, growth. And then 2008 arrived and tested everything I’d built.
I survived. But survival came with a cost I didn’t fully understand until later. Without the clarity I have now, I made a decision I teach every client to avoid: I compromised my brand to chase short-term cash flow. I took an aspirational business down-market. I ran liquidation sales. I gutted the margins I’d spent years building.
"I violated every principle I now teach. And I felt it — in my numbers, in my identity, and in the complete loss of my passion for what I'd built."
I walked away from what I’d built and started over. That experience is why I am so relentless about mission, vision, and financial discipline with my clients. Not because I read it in a textbook. Because I lived what happens when you let go of it under pressure.
After I walked away, I did something that looked reckless from the outside and felt absolutely necessary from the inside. I took 10 months and disappeared to Central America. No agenda. No title. No performance metrics.
I needed to remember who I was without the noise. To breathe. To reset the operating system.
"When you've been running at that pace for that long, stopping feels terrifying. And then it feels like the most intelligent thing you've ever done."
When I came back, I was clear. Not about what I was going to do — but about what I was not willing to do anymore. I was not willing to build something that owned me. I was not willing to compromise what I believed in for a seat at someone else’s table. And I was not willing to stop contributing in a way that actually mattered.
02
Chapter Two
The reset that changed everything.
03
Chapter THREE
The executive who couldn't look away.
I returned and stepped into corporate leadership. I climbed fast. I was good at it. Eventually I was overseeing $200M in revenue, national expansions, and teams across two countries. By every external measure, I had made it.
But the closer I got to the top, the more clearly I could see something I couldn’t unsee. The people being celebrated at the leadership table were not always the people driving the real work. The front line was being ground down while executive rewards grew beyond reason. I pushed back. I said what I saw. And I discovered quickly that candour is not always welcomed at the top of a corporate hierarchy.
"I was in the in-group. I had the title, the bonus, the stock options. And I still couldn't get behind what I was watching happen to the people doing the real work."
So I made the hard call and walked away. The values I lead with today were forged in that moment — chosen deliberately, over a very comfortable alternative.
I was 50 years old, in the mountains of British Columbia, with no roadmap and complete conviction. That combination, it turns out, is exactly what a second act requires.
I became an advisor. Then a senior advisor. Then I was building programs that taught founders how to stop drowning in their own businesses and start actually leading them. The results were not subtle — NPS scores of 85 to 90 when we promised 20. Owners getting their time, their confidence, and their businesses back.
Today I run Level-Up Advisory from the mountains and across the globe — taking calls from Buenos Aires and Ecuador, building strategy from BC. The model I teach, I live. A business built around your values, your life, and your definition of success is not a fantasy. It’s a design choice.
"When you've been running at that pace for that long, stopping feels terrifying. And then it feels like the most intelligent thing you've ever done."
I’m not so far ahead that I’ve forgotten the climb. I remember every rung. And that’s exactly why I’m effective — I reach back with real tools, real frameworks, and the hard-won perspective of someone who has been exactly where you are.
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Chapter FoUR
The second act built from conviction.
What I stand for
These aren't brand values
They're hard-won ones.
Every value on this list came from a moment where I had to choose it over
something easier.
Clarity
We choose truth over convenience and authenticity over comfort. I name the real issue — even when it’s uncomfortable. We work through things, not around them — and we talk to people, not about them.
Care
We lead with purpose — because profit follows purpose, every time. We care deeply; empathy and excellence are one and the same. We show up fully, coach the whole person, and give feedback generously. Because feedback is love.
Agency
We own our decisions, our numbers, our behaviour, and our impact. As leaders, we take responsibility before we take credit. We don’t let fear make our decisions — feeling it is human, being stopped by it is a choice.
Discernment
We focus on what’s right, not who’s right. We take calculated risks, have a bias to action, and see the answer in every problem — not the problem in every answer.
Built from the mountains.
Operating everywhere.
I made a deliberate choice to build a business that doesn’t own me. That means working from wherever makes sense — the mountains of BC, a café in Buenos Aires, a terrace in Ecuador.
The principles I teach are the same ones I used to design my own life. Clarity, structure, intentional growth — they apply to the business and to the life around it. A serious business and a life you actually want are not in conflict. That belief is at the core of everything I do.
Running a thriving advisory practice from the mountains and across the globe isn’t the reward for doing this work. It’s the reason I do it.
25+
Years of building, leading, and advising businesses across two countries
$200M+
Revenue led as CEO, founder, and senior executive
85–90
NPS scores when we promised 20. The results speak for themselves.
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Belief: a business built around your life is a design choice, not a dream
Ready to work together?