About Awen

Translated from Welsh and Celtic mythology, Awen - pronounced “AH -WHEN” - means flowing spirit and inspiration. Awen is a timeless symbol of creativity, imagination, and balance. It’s considered a source of inspiration, to guide and create harmony. Awen Design & Consulting honors the power of inspiration and wellbeing to optimize human potential.

Hello, I’m Max Avruch.

I'm a Talent Development and Wellness leader with a over a decade of experience in designing learning and wellbeing programs for startups, as well as established organizations in their early growth phases. My expertise spans learning experience, people leadership, talent development, design thinking, and health and wellness coaching. As a certified Positive Psychology and Wellbeing Coach, I coach leaders and clients on how to integrate meaningful, positive change into their lives.

My journey in the 0-1 start-up world, spanning various companies, exposed me to the highs and lows of innovation, alongside the escalating challenges of scaling high-growth environments.

I established Awen Design & Consulting with a mission to reignite inspiration and foster human-centered, positive, and meaningful experiences at scale for organizations and their leaders. I am a firm advocate of leaning into user experience to develop high impact programs for employees.

My driving question is: How might we foster inspiration to make a positive impact? To spark imagination, deeper connections? Having witnessed burnout, illness, stress, and toxic dysfunction in work environments, I sought to disrupt the status quo and reimagine work for the better. My vision involves advocating for what makes most human and aligning businesses around the collective power of inspired, healthy and happy communities.

Recognizing that emotions, thoughts, physical health, and environment all contribute to the individual experience, I founded my business to enable a connected and holistic orientation for designing new experiences. My aim is to equip organizations and individuals with the tools, knowledge, and access needed to inspire personal and professional growth. Through this, we can catalyze positive, human-centered changes and optimize everyone's potential.

Learn More

  • There are many definitions out there that organizations use to define employee experience (EX) design. I like to incorporate this definition:

    Employee Experience Design (EXD) is an intentional, human-centered process of mapping out an end-to-end journey that weaves all of the touch points an employee has over their time at an organization, ensuring its engaging, effective, memorable, and impactful.

  • Depending on the project - and appetite - I meld wellbeing offerings that work best for the organization/leaders/teams. Wellbeing is a broad umbrella and can mean different things to clients. I partner with clients to educate them on the multi-faceted components of wellbeing and discuss the best ways to bring it to life. My goal is to expand my clients’ view of wellbeing and integrate it seamlessly - and comfortably - into the employee experience to positively transform the business.

  • For most of my design services, I charge a flat, all-inclusive fee. Some clients prefer to do advisory or short-term engagements and can be an hourly rate. Every project is different and I work with clients to size it accordingly.