The foundation

 Maybe I was already primed for this work. At ten years old, my parents sent me to a Flemish boarding school in Ghent. I spoke French, not Dutch, and found myself in a completely different culture where survival meant learning to read people quickly. You either built rapport or spent your evenings alone. When you can't rely on language, you become acutely aware of body language, unspoken tensions, and group dynamics. It's a tough world, the ten-year-old girls' boarding school, and you learn human dynamics fast.

This pattern followed me everywhere. Italian university, English graduate school, German office for my first job—always the outsider learning the codes, always observing before speaking. I developed what I now recognize as a coaching attitude: asking questions instead of making assumptions, digging beneath surface explanations, staying curious about what drives people's decisions.

The lightbulb moment

After that Rome boardroom disaster, I researched every tool available for understanding human dynamics in high-stakes business situations. Coaching kept coming up, but this was years ago when it was still relatively unknown in Europe. I wanted to find the best training in the world, which led me to Columbia's Coaching Certification Program in New York (CCCP).

Columbia changed everything. Not just the methodology, but the rigor, the ethics, the depth of what coaching could accomplish. One of my professors asked me to coach her, liked the work, and suggested I take over her European clients under supervision. Through this unexpected opportunity, I found myself working with C-suite executives from the start - earning firsthand how coaching translates in high-pressure corporate environments.

Evolution beyond one-on-one

As my practice grew, I began seeing patterns that individual coaching alone couldn't address. Team dynamics. Organizational blind spots. Systemic issues that required a broader lens. I started conducting 360-degree assessments, hundreds of interviews, designing executive team workshops. Always with that same coaching attitude: what's really happening here? What are we not talking about? What would shift if we made the implicit explicit?

The work expanded into training design, but everything stayed grounded in that core coaching philosophy. As Einstein said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." My job became helping leaders and teams step outside their current thinking and acting patterns to examine new possibilities.

The industry dilemma

Here's where I need to be honest: I've struggled with calling myself a coach for years. Not because I don't believe in the work—I absolutely do. But because the coaching industry has become diluted. Everyone's a coach now. Consultants who give advice call it coaching. Mentors rebrand themselves as coaches. The title has been galvaudé, as we say in French—devalued through overuse.

This matters because real coaching is a highly ethical practice that requires rigorous training, ongoing supervision, and a completely different approach than consulting or mentoring. When someone says they're a coach, what does that actually mean? What training do they have? Are they supervised? Do they understand the ethical boundaries?

Reclaiming the standard

I've come to realize that avoiding the title doesn't solve the problem—it abandons the field to those who are diluting it. Instead, I want to hold the standard of what coaching should be. Real coaching isn't about having all the answers or fixing people's problems. It's about creating the conditions where people can access their own wisdom, see their blind spots, and make authentic choices aligned with their goals.

In my practice, this means:

Making the implicit explicit. Those elephants in the room? We're going to talk about them. Hidden agendas, circular thinking patterns, limiting beliefs—if it's affecting your leadership or your team's performance, it's part of our conversation.

Bringing my whole self to the work. My business background, my multicultural experience, my ability to read between the lines - all of this serves the coaching. I'm not hiding behind unrealistic neutrality; I'm using everything I've learned to help you see what you might be missing.

Staying systematically aware. Individual coaching happens within organizational contexts. Your growth as a leader affects your team, your stakeholders, your business results. We keep the bigger picture in view while working on your specific challenges.

Maintaining ethical rigor. I'm supervised, I respect confidentiality absolutely, and I never coach problems—I coach people. You're not the problem, and the problem isn't you. This distinction changes everything

Why this matters now

In a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence, the uniquely human elements of leadership become more valuable, not less. The ability to navigate complex stakeholder relationships, to read unspoken dynamics, to make decisions when the data is incomplete or conflicting—these are the capabilities that separate good leaders from great ones.

Coaching, done right, helps you develop and refine these essentially human skills. It's not about finding the right answer; it's about asking better questions. It's not about eliminating emotions from decision-making; it's about understanding how emotions inform better decisions.

What this means for you

If you're a corporate leader dealing with complex organizational dynamics, difficult stakeholder relationships, or the challenge of driving transformation while managing competing priorities, you need someone who understands both the business and human sides of these challenges.

You need someone who's been in rooms where millions were at stake and emotions ran high. Someone who can spot the real issue beneath the presenting problem. Someone committed to the highest standards of this profession, not just borrowing its vocabulary.

That's what I bring to every coaching engagement. Not just the tools and frameworks, but the experience of navigating the messy intersection of business and humanity. Because at the end of the day, all business is human business.

The question isn't whether you need support navigating these challenges. The question is whether you want to work with someone who takes this work as seriously as you take your leadership.