Carolina Caro believes the greatest barrier to change is holding on to what no longer works. Through The Unlearning Advantage®, she equips leaders to challenge outdated identity patterns, embrace new perspectives, and create lasting change in leadership, teams and organizational culture.
The greatest challenge facing leaders today isn’t change itself. It’s recognizing when yesterday’s success has become today’s limitation.
Even the most experienced leaders revert to ingrained identity patterns, often the very ones that built their success.
We call this identity inertia: the tendency to rely on yesterday’s answers to solve tomorrow’s challenges. And it doesn’t stop with individuals. Identity inertia can shape teams, cultures, and entire organizations.
A new way forward starts with a different way of thinking
Most change efforts begin by adding new strategies, new skills, or new initiatives. But if the real obstacle is identity inertia, adding more rarely solves the problem.
Rather than teaching leaders what to add, Carolina helps them uncover the assumptions and habits shaping the identity patterns that may be limiting what’s possible. By unlearning what no longer serves them, leaders create space for new ways of thinking, leading, and working to take root.
Inspired by the Spanish word poca (“small”), the POCA® Model for Unlearning reminds us that lasting transformation begins with small shifts in thinking and being.
Inspired by the Spanish word poca (“small”), the POCA® Model for Unlearning reminds us that lasting transformation begins with small shifts in thinking and being.
Through four intentional steps –Pause, Observe, Choose, and Act – leaders challenge outdated identity patterns before they become outdated ways of leading.
Hover over each step to explore the framework.
Create space for awareness before action.
Pausing interrupts automatic reactions and creates the space for new possibilities to emerge. At every level—self, team, and organization—it opens the door to what could be, instead of simply repeating what’s always been.
See what’s really driving the behavior.
Observe the patterns shaping yourself, your team, and your organization. By looking beneath behaviors to the assumptions, identities, and habits that created them, awareness becomes insight—and insight creates the possibility for meaningful change.
Create a different way forward.
With greater awareness comes the opportunity to choose differently. Rather than repeating familiar patterns, leaders intentionally shape the beliefs, behaviors, and ways of working that create stronger teams and better outcomes.
Turn intention into transformation.
Small, aligned actions create sustainable transformation. When what we do consistently reflects what we now believe, new patterns take root and lasting change becomes possible.
Keynote Programs
The POCA® Model for Unlearning provides the foundation. Carolina’s keynote programs show audiences how to apply it to the challenges they’re facing today, from leading through uncertainty to building more adaptable, innovative organizations.
The leadership habits that got you here won’t always get you where you’re going. As organizations ask leaders to deliver more with fewer resources, success depends less on doing more and more on letting go of what no longer works.
In this keynote, Carolina Caro introduces The Unlearning Advantage®, a practical framework that helps leaders identify outdated patterns, shift their thinking, and lead with greater confidence, adaptability, and impact.
High-performing teams don’t happen by accident. They are built by intentionally removing the patterns that slow collaboration, create friction, and keep talented people from working as one.
Through The Unlearning Advantage®, Carolina Caro helps teams identify and release the patterns holding them back so they can communicate more openly, build deeper trust, and move forward with greater clarity, confidence, and collective momentum.
The organizations best prepared for the future aren’t the ones with the best strategy, they’re the ones willing to let go of what no longer works.
In Change Ready, Carolina Caro shows leaders how to identify the habits, assumptions, and organizational norms that resist change. Participants leave with practical strategies for building a culture where adaptability, innovation, and continuous learning become part of how people think, collaborate, and lead every day.
“Carolina’s message was exactly what our community needed: to unlearn outdated habits, identities built for a past season, and beliefs that no longer serve us. What moved us most were the reflections. The honest shares. The vulnerable moments as our community leaned into the courageous work of unlearning. Thank you, Carolina, for inspiring us to rethink, release, and lead boldly. Your message did not just challenge us. It stayed with us.”
“From the first meeting to our post-event debrief, Carolina took time to get to know our organization’s story and our strategic vision. Her personal vulnerability and real-life, lived examples helped create trust with our organization right off the bat. I highly recommend working with Carolina!”
“The response to her keynote was overwhelmingly positive. It delivered a poignant experience that addressed important challenges that were relevant for our participants while providing clear, actionable takeaways.”
“Carolina has spoken at several of our conferences. We enjoy working with her and the audience always walks away with a great learning experience AND tangible takeaways.”
Before becoming a keynote speaker and executive advisor, Carolina spent years as a scientist and leader at Merck and Pfizer, navigating complex change from the inside.
Then she made a radical decision – walking away from a successful career to reinvent herself completely.
That experience became the foundation of her work today, challenging leaders to let go of the assumptions, habits, and beliefs that keep organizations from adapting to what’s next.
READY TO BUILD A CHANGE-READY CULTURE?
The future belongs to organizations willing to challenge assumptions, let go of outdated thinking, and create cultures that adapt with confidence. Carolina equips leaders with the identity shifts and practical tools to make change can stick.