The questions people actually ask me, answered plainly.
I am a trainer, coach and speaker in compassionate leadership. I live in Utrecht in the Netherlands, work worldwide in Dutch and English, and have been doing this work for around twenty years. I founded TrueVoice Academie, my Dutch practice, in 2006, and the Compassionate Leadership Institute for the international work. First and foremost, I am a proud father of two and married to my great love.
TrueVoice Academie is the Dutch practice: open workshops and in-company training in authentic communication and compassionate leadership, running since 2006. The Compassionate Leadership Institute is the international practice, focused on leadership development and psychological safety for large organisations in complex environments. Looking for something in the Netherlands? TrueVoice is your way in. Working internationally, or a large organisation? Then the Institute.
I work with Compassion Cultivation, Coherence Therapy, Voice Dialogue, non-violent communication and Deep Democracy. Coherence Therapy, developed by Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley, works with what sits underneath a stuck pattern rather than against it. Voice Dialogue, developed by Hal and Sidra Stone, gives every voice inside a person its turn to speak. Compassion Cultivation trains compassion as a skill rather than an attitude. Non-violent communication and Deep Democracy come in where things chafe between people: in conversations that have stalled, and in groups where not everything gets said.
I rarely name any of them in a session. I apply them.
Always striving toward wisdom, always falling short, always getting back up with compassion. As a wise fool I embrace all of it: chaos and beauty, anger and love, confrontation and connection. Not a spiritual teacher, but a fellow seeker. Sharp enough to look past the facade, gentle enough to hold what we find there.
With leaders, teams and organisations: executives, ministers, scientists, students, refugees and civil servants. The work has taken me to Uganda, Laos and Vietnam, to the International Space University in Strasbourg, to Dutch honours programmes, and to parliaments and ministries. What all of those people share, beneath every difference of context, is the struggle of being human in a world that asks too much of us.
Nothing less than heaven on earth, not as a polished ideal but through the raw, complex work of being fully human. I worry about the state of the planet and the future my children will inherit: climate change, inequality, polarisation. I believe compassionate leadership is one of the ingredients for addressing them.
My TEDx talk at the University of Groningen is called How compassion makes teams stronger, on what genuine team strength looks like and why skills alone are not enough. I write on Substack about compassion, leadership and the systems we work inside.
For the Netherlands, write to info@truevoice.nl. For international work, imre@cl.institute. By phone or Signal: +31 6 1260 2169. For trainings, coaching, speaking, or just a good conversation, I would love to hear from you.
Questions about formats, costs, expected results and how an engagement starts are answered in detail on the Institute's own FAQ.