Case Study: Mollie — Narrative Learning Lab
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Case Study · Amsterdam 2025

How Mollie turned
silence into stories.

A storytelling-based learning programme that transformed 20 employees into confident speakers — and turned one company evening into a masterclass in human connection.

20
programme
participants
5
speakers on
stage
40–50
audience
members
5/5
overall
rating
Storytelling night
The Context

A company that wanted its people
to find their voice.

Mollie, one of Europe’s leading fintech companies, recognised that communication skills were becoming a competitive advantage — not just for leadership, but for everyone. The question wasn’t whether people had valuable perspectives. It was whether they felt equipped and confident to share them.

They brought in Narrative Learning Lab to design and run a programme that would build real public speaking capability — and culminate in something the wider company could experience and learn from together.

The theme was Speaking Up: how to speak with confidence, how to handle difficult conversations, how to make yourself heard in a room that isn’t always listening.

Organisation
Mollie — European fintech company, Amsterdam
Participants
20 employees across different crafts and seniority levels
Theme
Speaking Up — confidence, communication & finding your voice
Format
Multi-week programme + live Storytelling Night capstone event
The Programme

Three phases.
One transformation.

The programme was designed to build capability step by step — from fundamentals to live performance in front of the whole company.

Phase 01
Foundations Workshop
A hands-on, interactive session where participants learned the fundamentals of public speaking — voice, pace, pause, structure, and how to own a room. Practical from the very first minute. Everyone spoke. Everyone got feedback.
Phase 02
Practice & Coaching
Participants returned for multiple practice sessions, refining their stories and delivery through peer feedback and one-to-one coaching. Five candidates were selected to speak at the final event — chosen for the quality of their story and its connection to the theme.
Phase 03
The Storytelling Night
The capstone event. Five speakers took the stage in front of 40–50 colleagues and leaders. Using Mollie’s own event space, decorated simply and warmly, the evening felt intimate, real, and unlike anything a standard training would produce.
The Stories

Five speakers. Five moments
nobody expected.

The difference between where the five speakers started and where they ended up on the night was, in the words of several attendees, black and white. Each had taken a real experience from their working life and shaped it into something worth sharing.

The audience — colleagues enjoying a beer in a space they knew well — found themselves genuinely moved. Not by polished performance, but by honesty. By the recognition of something true in what they were hearing.

After the event, people stayed. They talked. They came up to the speakers, to the organisers, to each other — expressing gratitude for addressing something so rarely spoken about openly at work.

01
Why speaking up feels dangerous — and why staying silent costs more
A personal story about a moment of silence that changed a project, a team, and a career.
02
How I learned to disagree without burning bridges
On navigating conflict, maintaining relationships, and the surprising power of a well-timed pause.
03
The meeting I almost didn’t speak in — and what happened when I did
A junior voice in a senior room. What it took to say the thing nobody else was saying.
04
Finding your communication style — not copying someone else’s
On authenticity, adapting to different audiences, and the freedom of owning how you speak.
05
What I wish someone had told me about speaking up earlier
Lessons from a decade of getting it wrong — and the one conversation that changed everything.
The Results

What the numbers
actually showed.

100%
rated the programme relevant to their role
68%
felt confident to apply learnings immediately
63%
were already using what they learned
5/5
overall programme rating
Participant Feedback

Rated across every
dimension of delivery.

Clarity4.6 / 5
Structure & Flow4.7 / 5
Engagement & Energy4.9 / 5
Support & Approachability4.8 / 5
Practical Value4.8 / 5
5.0
Overall rating
“The personal analysis and personal touch. Alp really identified your areas for improvement, and worked with you to improve those.”
Programme participant · December 2025
“That public speaking isn’t something you either can or can’t do. By using the right techniques anyone can improve their public speaking.”
Programme participant · December 2025

Want to bring this to
your organisation?

Every company has people with stories worth telling. Let’s design a programme that turns those stories into shared learning — and gives your team a night they won’t forget.

Book a Consultation →