I like challenges, movement in life. Always have.
As a newly graduated licentiate translator, I knew only one thing: translating texts was not my thing. I had a lot of ambition, but not much direction yet. I would realize the importance of that later in my career..
I started working for a petrochemical company in the port of Antwerp. I was offered great opportunities within HR and took on one challenge after another. I worked in Antwerp, Brussels, Feluy and Ertvelde and took on several managerial HR positions.
They guided me through the various HR disciplines and past reorganizations, a plant closure, social negotiations (a great passion !), developing training and education programs, personnel budgets, salary reviews, career management, and so much more.
Throughout those years I developed a nose for setting up and optimizing HR processes. I believe that with a little common sense you can get quite far.
Simplicity, efficiency and guaranteed continuity: that is my credo. Simply HR.
Around the age 35, I banged into that imaginary wall. As a brand new mom and in the midst of a whole bunch of important HR projects, I lost track and realized I was balancing on the edge of burnout. I took coaching lessons and took it with both hands. Now, so many years later, I am still using the tools that were given to me at the time.
That coaching awakened something in me: the will to do my bit in companies, to propagate the importance of authenticity and involved communication. To make employees and managers aware of everyone’s valuable “otherness” and how to translate that within teams into a powerful complementarity in which each team member can make his own unique contribution in (self)confidence.
In 2017, a first great consulting job came my way and I jumped into the unknown of self-employment at age 40. I went back to study and in 2017 became an accredited practitioner for Insights (another passion), the colorful tool that allows individuals and team members to better understand themselves and others and communicate with each other on a deeper level.
In 2019 I obtained my postgraduate degree in Inspirational Coaching, an extremely valuable training. It became the forerunner for a next postgraduate : Coaching with horse as a mirror. An old love and a new passion that just found each other and brought me closer to myself again.
And so I gradually discovered that my story is not one of either/or, but of both/and: HR consultant in heart and soul who, through coaching and training, moves managers and employees to authenticity and engaged communication and, at the same time, likes to regularly nail down the hard HR skills. Constantly looking for the best possible win-win scenario for organization and individual.
That’s me.