Free Guide: Level up your leadership mindset.
Written with young women leaders in mind, this guide will help you increase your awareness for experimenting with your unique leadership mindset.
Free Guided Meditation
Becoming more aware of your thoughts and feelings allows you to take more conscious decisions. Download this free guided meditation to try today!
My Story…
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Curious about my professional background? Click here to learn more.
I have 30+ years’ experience in global public health and development, in particular in sexual and reproductive health, maternal health and family planning. I worked with international NGOs and as an independent consultant in the United States, Asia, and Africa, developing and managing quality programs, leading teams, mobilizing resources, fostering innovation, and achieving results. Over the course of my career, I gained extensive experience in leadership development, teambuilding, and staff coaching.
I am a Certified Professional Coach trained in Core-Energy Coaching at the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), and a certified meditation instructor with the Open Heart Project. I also have a post-graduate certificate in Health Economics from Aberdeen University, Scotland, and a Master’s in Health Sciences from Maastricht University, the Netherlands.
My experience and strengths include:
• Mentoring and coaching staff
• Leading global teams
• Facilitating team development
• Designing competency-based leadership development systems
• Guiding strategic planning
• Developing training curricula and facilitating training
• Designing, managing, and evaluating public health programs
• Establishing, strengthening and strategic positioning of NGO country offices
• Negotiating and building organizational partnerships
• Developing proposals and raising funds from key global donors
My countries of work experience include Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali, Malaysia, Namibia, Niger, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, USA, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
It is my mission to assist young women professionals working in national/international development in living their best lives and amplifying their personal and professional impact.
I started my own international adventure at a small not-for-profit in the Netherlands, working on improving sexual and reproductive health in the global south. As a young professional, I got amazing opportunities to manage projects, travel, and drive my own learning. My supervisors challenged my thinking and trusted my opinion.
I realized that I was starting from a place of privilege and that many of my colleagues did not have the same opportunities as I did. I have never taken this start and my opportunities for granted, and it taught me a lot about what I value, how I relate with colleagues, and about fostering growth. I applied and built on these lessons over the course of my career.
Is that all that’s to my story? Not really!
While I was incredibly fulfilled and loved what I was doing, I also found that I derived all my self-worth from my work. After a while, stress started taking its toll. Yet I continued pushing through.
I believed that all I needed to do was find better ways to deal with the stress and to silence the nagging little voice in my head. I continued like this for years until I started working with a coach. She helped me realize that I did not need to push through my feelings of discomfort.
I also started to realize that for all the richness my professional traveling life had brought me, it was time for me to start a new chapter. A new phase that would allow me to live a more balanced life, yet where I could still bring all my experiences and passions together.
I enrolled in a Core Energy Coaching training with the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC), with the purpose of starting a coaching business supporting emerging women leaders in national/international development.
Why emerging women leaders?
Well, I know from experience how valuable it is to get the opportunity to build a strong foundation when starting out your career and when transitioning into management/leadership roles. I also strongly believe in the importance of equity and decolonizing international development. I focus in particular on reaching those emerging women leaders that may otherwise not have coaching opportunities.
As I believe in building long-term professional relationships, all my clients get the opportunity—if they would like—to join a professional network to continue supporting each other. I organize regular masterminding sessions where former coaching clients drive the agenda and support each others’ leadership growth.
Ready for the next step?
Click below to set up a complimentary consultation with Ellen.