THE PRACTICE CEO CIRCLE™ · COHORT 3
The room where group practice owners stop building alone.
A six-month mastermind for ten Canadian group practice owners. A place to say the uncertain thing out loud — to people standing exactly where you are, and to someone still running the seven-figure practice she built.

BEGINS
January 11, 2027
SEATS
10
APPLICATION CLOSES
December 25, 2026
“I no longer feel like I'm making decisions in the dark by myself.”
Haley M., RSW · Group Practice Owner, ON
IS THIS YOUR ROOM?
You're making the biggest decisions of your working life mostly by yourself.
You've built something real. A group practice with associates, a reputation, and a standard of care people seek out. You haven't been a beginner for a long time.
But the decisions have changed. Whether this associate is working out. When to hire the next one — or whether what looks like a hiring problem is really a systems one. What to charge. What to stop doing yourself.
You know every piece exists. What nobody ever handed you is how they fit together — that hiring competes with systems, that systems compete with pricing, that the problem showing up in your team often started somewhere else entirely.
So you research at eleven at night. You ask AI. You run it past someone who loves you and has never run a practice. And the conversations you do have with other owners tend to stay on what's going well.
Nobody's cheering you on in your own business. It's just you, going, yay me.
What's missing isn't more information. It's a room of owners standing where you are, willing to be honest about the risk — and someone in it who can tell you which move is yours this quarter.
WHAT THIS ROOM IS
A room where you can say the uncertain thing out loud.
Ten group practice owners, at roughly the same point in the build. Six months. Every week, the thing you haven't said to anyone else gets said here — the associate you're not sure about, the number you haven't dared to name, the decision you've been circling since spring.
“Some of the most grounding moments in the Circle are actually silent. The questioning looks when you're not valuing yourself enough. The reassuring smiles when you're feeling vulnerable. The pride when you've shown up in a way that aligns with your values.”
Haley, M, RSW
Safety first. Peers second. Strategy the whole way through.
That order matters. Strategy only lands when you can be honest about where you actually are, and most rooms never get honest enough for it to matter. This one is curated so that it does.
INSIDE THE CIRCLE
What actually happens in this room.
Drawn from the call notes of the cohorts before yours — and from members' own words.
01
They stop being a clinician who happens to own a business.
The shift from therapist-who-runs-a-practice to CEO-who-still-loves-the-clinical-work changes how members decide, how they lead and what they count as success. Most discover their clinical training was preparing them for this all along.
03
They build culture on the way out, not only the way in.
Culture isn't a values statement on a website. It's what everyone who works in and with your practice actually lives — including the moment someone leaves.
“I've spent so much time making the onboarding as good as possible, but the offboarding is just as important for not only the company, but also team morale and transitions for clients. It allows for growth because it contributes to our trust factor with clients and with our team in knowing that things are handled appropriately.”
Haley · Group Practice Owner
05
They rebuild the client journey from the client's side.
Client flow is one of the most common hidden ceilings in a group practice. Members walk the journey the way a new client does, and find the friction nobody had noticed.
02
They make the people decisions they've been circling.
Hiring timing and fit. Leading associates without sliding back into supervising them. And the harder one — deciding what it costs to keep someone who isn't working out.
“I'm so much more aware now of the cost to the business and to my sanity to try to make it work with someone who is not meeting expectations.”
Orli · Group Practice Owner
04
They see the whole business — and find what's actually limiting it.
With The Practice Growth Model™, members stop treating symptoms one at a time and start seeing how the pieces interact. The pricing problem that was really a leadership problem. The hire that didn't work because the role was never defined. One constraint, named — and then moved.
06
They take up more space.
Being seen, and wanting more — the two places capable women were taught to stay small. Members separate what's theirs from what they were handed: the number said out loud, the program finally announced, the practice allowed to grow past the size that felt permitted.
This is where the feminist, anti-oppressive lens does its work — as the thing that finds why a good practice has stayed smaller than it needs to be.
"Cecilia has street cred... She coaches from social work values, so the Circle feels like an extension of her clinical practice, not a business program bolted on top of it."
— Laura Boyko, MSW, RSW, MEd, Founder & Psychotherapist, BeWell Therapy
THE PRACTICE GROWTH MODEL™
Every call runs on a model of the whole business.
Most practice owners were never handed a working model of the thing they're running. The Circle is built on one — so the question is never what should I work on? but which one is holding the others back right now?
Purpose
Growth aligned with your values and your own definition of success — so the practice reflects who you are, not who you were told to be.
Profit
Revenue beyond the clinical hour, pricing you can defend, and the number you're actually building toward.
People
Hiring, leading and, when it's needed, letting go — with a team that extends what you built.
Process
The client journey, the systems and the structure that let the practice run without you as the answer to everything.
One domain is always governing the rest. The work is finding which — and expecting it to move once you've solved it.
THIS ROOM IS CURATED
Readiness, not revenue.
The Circle is only for group practice owners. Beyond that there's no revenue threshold. What matters is where you are in the build, and what you're prepared to do with six months.
This room is for you if…
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You own a group practice in Canada, with associates in place or a team you're actively building.
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You've been circling at least one decision for months, and you're ready for it to be made rather than postponed.
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You want a room that's honest with you, and you're willing to be honest back.
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You take responsibility for what you get out of this. The room will hold you to it; it can't do it for you.
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You can give it six months: the calls, and the work in between.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
What happens when practice owners enter this room.
RCC · Group Practice Owner, BC
“Before I joined the CEO Circle, I knew I needed to grow my leadership skills but I was lacking confidence in which direction to go.
I was carrying the responsibility of filling my associates' caseloads without considering that they also had a responsibility to market themselves, build their own visibility, and recruit their own referrals. I could see the work my associates needed to do, but I struggled to approach it with assertiveness — I'd position opportunities for growth as suggestions rather than expectations.
The biggest shift has been our upcoming move into offering in-person sessions. Reframing this as an additional revenue stream rather than a competing offering was a game changer. I've gained so much in my ability to lead with assertiveness and confidence, and I'm seeing tangible results in client retention. I approach administrative tasks with confidence now, which has led me to create a schedule that supports both my admin and clinical load as a group practice owner. I'm much more clear on the culture I want to create in my business, which has allowed me to see more clearly which associates are the right fit.
Cecilia is exceptional in her ability to inspire change and motivate into action. The Circle has energized me as a business owner in a way I didn't know was possible.”
RSW · Group Practice Owner, ON
“Before I joined the CEO Circle, I was making decisions in isolation and crossing my fingers they'd work out.
I was relying on late-night Google searches and AI conversations to learn what I didn't know — which was a lot — about running a group practice. I had an amazing team, and I felt like I was failing them. I knew I was a good therapist. I really didn't feel like a good boss, a good leader, or a good business operator.
I'm a researcher by nature, and I looked into a lot of programs before I found the Circle. Most of them included content I'd already built on my own, or were based in the States and wouldn't translate to the Canadian market. When I met Cecilia, I knew I could feel safe being truly vulnerable with my shortcomings — with her and with any group of women she curated.
March was our practice's best month yet. But more than the business outcomes, I notice a change in my leadership. I've started to trust my intuition, think longer term, and step into the CEO seat rather than leading from the therapist seat. I feel connected and supported by a group of women heading in the same direction as me — and I no longer feel like I'm making decisions in the dark by myself.”
MSW, RSW, MEd · Founder & Psychotherapist, BeWell Therapy
“I had just opened my own brick-and-mortar practice after five years as a solopreneur, and I felt like I was swimming upstream without a paddle. Then I found Cecilia.
What set her apart from the other coaches I'd looked at was the street cred. Eighteen years as a practice owner — that's someone who's weathered the good times and the bad and had to pivot more than once. And because she coaches from social work values, the Circle feels like an extension of her clinical practice, not a business program bolted on top of it. That was what I'd been looking for.
Inside the Circle, I've gotten the solid, legitimate Canadian information no one tells you about — pricing, hiring, contracts, the legalities. And a reminder that it was time to put my leadership pants back on after a seven-year hiatus.
If you're trying to build or scale a practice, she gives you guidance, hard truths, and honest facts. She helped me steer my business in the right direction before I ran it off the rails.”
INSIDE THE CIRCLE
What's included.
Two one-to-one strategy calls
An onboarding call where we map your goals and find the limiting factor in your practice. A second at the midpoint to see what's moved, and what's surfaced next.
Direct access to me
Monday to Friday in the community, between calls — for the hiring dilemma that lands on a Wednesday, or the pricing question you've been circling for a month.
Bi-Weekly live calls
Two hours, twice per month for six months. Teaching, hot seat coaching and peer strategy. Members consistently call it the favourite part of their week.
An active private community
Not a graveyard of good intentions. A high-touch space where members share wins, work through problems and become each other's thinking partners.
Guest expert sessions
Carefully chosen specialists where outside expertise moves you faster — wealth building, legal, financial, HR, retention and more.
Every recording, permanently
So the work keeps paying off long after the six months end.
JOIN COHORT 3
APPLICATIONS CLOSE DECEMBER 25
How to apply.
The Circle isn't open enrolment. Every cohort is curated, because the room is only as good as the honesty in it.
01
Submit your application
About ten minutes. It helps me understand where your practice is, what you're working toward, and whether this is the right room now.
02
Application review
I read every application personally, within 48 business hours. If it looks like a strong fit, you'll be invited to book a Discovery Conversation.
03
Discovery Conversation
Forty-five minutes, complimentary. Not a sales call — we both assess fit, and decide together whether Cohort 3 is the right room at the right time.
04
Confirmation
If it's a mutual yes, your agreement and payment details arrive within 24 hours. Cohort 3 begins January 11, 2027.
Built on the belief that the most effective business strategy is also the most humane one. That profit and values are not in tension. That collaborative, feminist, anti-oppressive leadership doesn't just feel better — it builds better practices, better teams, and better outcomes for every person the practice touches.
Cecilia Mannella, RSW · RCC-ACS-C


