Company Cecilia
If you as an organization want to take a new course with your policy plan, you need someone who dares to ask the right questions. Compagnie Cecilia opted for a collaboration with S&L five years ago. And now does it again.
Compagnie Cecilia is a theater community from Ghent that focuses on player-driven theater and readable stories. They create and present performances in their theater hall and on location. Their home base is De Expeditie on the old docks in Ghent.
Vjera Somers , general and business manager of Company Cecilia : “Five years ago I was looking for Arne Sierens , the founder and until then the face of the organization, moved to other places. The team was completely new and the operation had to be built from scratch. There was no step-by-step plan. Only the conviction that our theater had to remain accessible and warm.”
Company Cecilia then called in S&L. Not for ready-made answers, but for the right questions . What do we stand for? Who are we doing it for? How do we work together? S&L helped the team get back to the core and build a impact model on. That described the impact that Compagnie Cecilia wanted to make in the cultural sector and the world, and the choices that had to result from that. Powerful and tailor-made.
“Our reflection exercise led us, among other things, to the choice to move away from the classical structure with an artistic director who lays out all the lines. From now on we would work with a broader group of makers. That was exciting.”
But it worked. Today there is Company Cecilia 40,000 visitors per year and the organization is flourishing. Now that a new policy period has begun, the organization is once again working with S&L.
The questions no one asks out loud
"S&L asks the questions that remain internal. It does not avoid the difficult conversations. Sometimes you need someone to point out from the outside what you no longer see," says Vjera.
The collaboration goes further than just the policy plan. In between, Compagnie Cecilia turned to S&L for specific issues within the organization: division of tasks, internal dynamics and innovation. The support was always compact and manageable , as Compagnie Cecilia itself describes it.
“S&L helps you look differently and not avoid those difficult questions.”
In 2024, more than a year before the deadline of the current policy plan, S&L already spoke with artists and partners for an interim evaluation. That helped to make blind spots visible. “Because an organization is constantly on the move. If you only see each other when the policy plan has to be put on the table, you miss a lot,” says Vjera. In addition, the organization, together with S&L, considered new directions in its operation and the internal division of tasks. When the policy planning process was started at the end of 2025, it turned out that a lot of thinking had already been done.
An inspiring collaboration between customer and S&L
Sabine Craenen : “For us, Compagnie Cecilia is a customer that we are inspired by. For example, the organization works according to it sociocratic model, and for them that is not just a nice word on paper. When you enter the organization, you immediately feel it. The barriers are low and everyone is approachable. Audience, actors and employees.”
“The policy planning is also a true co-creation between S&L and Compagnie Cecilia . S&L prepares work sessions, but Compagnie Cecilia then actively works on the results. When we return two weeks later, a lot of work has been done again. That collaboration gives a lot of energy.” Vjera: “That interaction makes the difference. The entire team has great confidence in S&L. So big that choosing S&L for a new policy plan was almost a no-brainer.”
“The entire team at Compagnie Cecilia has great confidence in S&L.”
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