My professional journey began in the commercial world after studying law and business. Early on, I became fascinated not only by how organisations function externally, but by the deeper human dynamics shaping them from within. In particular, how leadership, culture and communication influence what becomes possible in systems.
From 2008 onwards, this curiosity led me beyond conventional business frameworks into the fields of social business, sustainability, organisational change and conscious leadership. I became increasingly interested in the relationship between inner development and collective action, and how the quality of our awareness and relationships directly affects the futures we create together.
A pivotal turning point came when I joined the innovative business community The Hub in Amsterdam and encountered the early European wave of the relational practices Authentic Relating and Circling. What I experienced and discovered during that time fundamentally changed my understanding of everything.
It opened a path that has shaped my life and work ever since.
Over the past fifteen years, I have immersed myself in relational and embodied practice as both a facilitator and a lifelong student. My work draws from several streams of thinking and practice, including Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, Deep Democracy, and facilitation approaches such as the Art of Hosting and the Wheel of Consent. At the spine of it all lie Circling and Surrendered Leadership.
One of the deepest learnings of my path has been, and continues to be, how to remain sovereign in connection. How to stay rooted in my own experience while genuinely opening to the experience of another. As many of you may know, this includes learning to recognise what is mine to feel, own and communicate, while allowing others the dignity and responsibility of their own inner world.
What continues to fascinate me are the many layers of information available in each moment: sensation, emotion, intuition, cultural conditioning and ancestral patterning moving through every human interaction.
At times, I experience this as making art with the layered nature of human experience. Listening with the whole system as a whole system (including body, heart and awareness), and allowing meaning to emerge relationally is one of the deepest joys I know and one I love sharing with others.
What invigorates me most right now is the moment when self-leadership evolves into co-leadership and emergent co-creation. When individuals begin to move beyond performance, defensiveness or control, and something more collective starts to emerge. A conscious “we-space”, a field of shared awareness where trust, creativity and insight become available in ways no individual could produce alone.
All this is the territory I imagine will continue to guide and nourish my passion for relational practice and embodied relational leadership for many years to come. With at the heart one simple conviction: how we relate to ourselves, to one another and to the systems we are part of shapes the future we are able to create.
