Lisa Vos

I work with a broad spread of clients in the corporate, public and not for profit sectors across the globe, ranging from large global organizations to small local ones; from C-suite executives to front line leaders and professionals. Sectors include: professional services firms, financial institutions, big tech, biotech start-ups and scale-ups, global not-for-profits (climate change, poverty), energy, universities. I am at my best working with leaders, intact teams, or organizations on their real challenges; helping them amplify their business outcomes, improve their relationships and dynamics, and grow their leadership in the process.

8 years of Global Executive Leadership Program: cohorts of 24 senior leaders who are aimed to step into the most senior executive roles in the near future. The program is a longitudinal deep development journey, integrating a combination of deep personal leadership development, effective interpersonal and team dynamics, and real contributions to strategic objectives and business outcomes. Program elements include LCP 360, 1:1 executive coaching, Peer Coaching Trios, business interventions in teams of 6, a 6-day Residential Program, and multiple virtual learning sessions. Most senior executive appointments of the past 8 years were alumni of this program.

In addition, I have provided ongoing executive coaching to roughly 20 senior leaders of a global design and engineering firm, in their transition into executive roles. I have been doun intact leadership team development and coaching with multiple executive teams across the globe. The impact of my work with this client has been noticeable, particularly as a consequence of the self-reinforcing impact of the different interventions mentioned above. By now at least 80% of the top 100 executives have been part of at least one, mostly multiple of those interventions.

I establish strong relationships with my clients, a joint deep understanding of the particular needs of that client and I co-create series of interventions to meet those needs. This approach requires a strong sense of common ownership, responsibility and partnership. Among the methodologies I use are: longitudinal leadership development programs, Team and Executive coaching, work based learning activities, action learning experiments, appreciative inquiry, Large Scale interventions (like Open Space, World Café, Future Search), reflective practice, teaching and lecturing to provide new concepts, simulations and experiential exercises. I am competent and comfortable in creating combinations of planned, content based approaches and working in emergence with the client system, using the system in the room as case in point. I create the conditions in which people can have conversations they normally would not have, can go to the hardest places in service of growth and things that are undiscussable can be talked about. My way of working is characterized by clients as thought provoking and inspiring.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a flawless sense of what is going on below the surface between people and in teams. Over the course of my professional career I have developed ways to helpfully intervene in those dynamics. I bring the rare combination of strong strategic business acumen at one hand and deep capability in the development of people, teams and organisations. My approaches to this work have been shaped by complexity & chaos theory, systems thinking, theory of self-organisation, and adult development theory. In addition, I draw on approaches for experiential learning, reflective practice and triple purpose development (Personal Development – Team/Organisation Development – Development of better business outcomes). In my lifelong journey of personal and professional growth, I have included a broad spectrum of bodies of knowledge, including psychological approaches, sociology, anthropology, and spiritual approaches from across the globe.

I have 30 years of hands on knowledge and experience with helping organisations and leaders shift their thinking into new models, choosing different ways of organising and leading which are better suited to handling the complex challenges organisations face today and creating transformational change.

Colleague, Client Lead and Part of the Gardener of Sustainability Team.

MSc in Business & Management, Rijksuniversity Groningen (The Netherlands)
Professional Development Programme, deep development program focusing on process consulting, interpersonal and group dynamics, systems psychodynamics, complexity based development approaches, Institute of Organisational Development, Leuven (Belgium)
Certified in Leadership Circle Profile 360
Certified in the Organization Workshop, (Barry Oshry, Power+Systems)
Certfied Systemic Team Coach (Peter Hawkins, Renewal Associates)
Certified in ExperienceChance and ExperienceInnovation (Experience Point)
Growth Edge Coaching

After having lived in Australia twice, partner Rob and I have now established our home base in Monterrey (Mexico) and spend regular time in our second hometown Wageningen (The Netherlands). I love running and walking in the beautiful natural surroundings of Wageningen, hiking and mountain biking the awe-inspiring mountains around Monterrey, reading books, watching sports, and travelling the world with my husband and my three adult children, Anouk, Inez and Micha. I love everything nature, and care about contributing to a fairer, more just and more sustainable world. I love making myself available to do pro-bono coaching and development work, for people and organizations that work for the greater good. I am currently growing and nurturing a small agave ‘forest’ on my roof terrace in Monterrey.

Whilst I am well trained in psychology and counselling methods, and comfortable and skilled in taking people to a deeply personal and emotion al place, I am not a psychotherapist. I work with healthy people in the context of their ‘work’ and their work system. I will refer clients with a therapy question that goes beyond my expertise to a CL colleague or a professional outside of CL.

I don’t do expert organization advice or expert based consulting. I am a developer and will always work with the client and the client system, to grow their own capability and capacity to make the changes they think they need. I will always show up as a developer, as a learner. I hold deep and rigorous knowledge and expertise, but that is not the difference that makes the difference in my impact with clients. When there is a request for expert advice, solutions, or answers, I will refer the client to an expert-based consultant.

In principle, I do not work with clients in the following industries or sectors: weapons or weapon industry suppliers, tobacco, bio-industrial agro sector. I only work with fossil fuel companies when there is a genuine intent to shift to renewable energy sources, and my work might contribute to that.