About Me

I was born in The Netherlands in 1969. After finding my way through school, I decided that Hotel life was my destiny, so I enrolled in Hotel School. By the time I received my Bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management, in 1993, I had figured out that the World of Hotels wasn’t really my world, so I moved on to study Organisational Anthropology, of which I received my Master’s degree in 1996.

At that time the opportunity to move to Nepal arose for my husband Martin and me. I worked as an operational manager and as an organisational consultant for several companies during the three years that we spent in Kathmandu. This period opened my eyes to a different world and it broadened my view on organisations, management and processes of development and growth. I discovered my fascination for individual and group development and as I returned to The Netherlands in 1999, I decided that my professional future would be in this area.

In Amsterdam, I worked for an International HR firm for three years. I gained experience in conducting training and teambuilding programmes, personal and career coaching as well as assessing people on their talents and capabilities. I became proficient on the subject of Competency Management, which gave me a comprehensive cadre for organisational and HR development.

In January 2003 I started my own coaching and training firm in Amsterdam. For a period of five years, I enjoyed working for small and large, profit and non-profit organisations. These included the Royal Dutch Airlines KLM, a large IT company, several regional Police Forces and other semi-government organisations, including schools and municipality offices. At the same time I followed an intensive coaching and counselling course and several shorter training courses on coaching, assessment skills and training of trainers.

Nepal, however, had never been very far from our minds and since 2006 we had been working towards a return. In January 2008 we moved back to Kathmandu and we are enjoying it thoroughly.

See About Sunflower Coaching and About Change for more...