What brings you to the field of international competence development?
Being passionately engaged in the field of language culture and communications. When the opening up of boundaries in the 90s demanded new competencies, I quickly started acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to train people in the intercultural field and to facilitate working across borders.
How might intercultures’ customers find you unique?
My strong roots in my culture, and my deep knowledge of the German culture, which I acquired through a number of study programs in Germany, as well as my experience in developing leaders in over 25 countries. All these together give me a perfect understanding of the complexity of working globally. I have worked (in various cities) in several multinational organisations and have a long standing track record as a consultant, coach and trainer retained over the last two decades, both in Europe and Asia.
What do you like about working with intercultures?
intercultures is a pioneer with a high standard. It is a learning organisation that believes in the same values that I cherish: the collaboration with other consultants from different countries resulting from our international work is a constant sources of personal learning for me. intercultures is constantly adding to the existing knowledge and tools available. I am very proud to be a part of it.
In a global context – why do you think is your work – and our work together important?
Today we live in an interdependent world, where the ability to communicate and collaborate alone can determine one’s success. As businesses grow, people are transitioning from working domestically to globally. However, the often lacking skills to communicate and collaborate need to be developed. I believe my contribution lies exactly in this area – I help building bridges of understanding and coach people to work better globally. The bandwidth of expertise present at intercultures makes this a high quality and sustainable learning effect for the client.
What is the special market situation in India?
India is rapidly growing in economic stature and the average age of an Indian lies between 30-35 years. That makes it difficult for leaders to develop maturity they need to lead others on the job. Global skill development is therefore the key to India’s success, but there are hardly enough competent organisations like intercultures to meet this need.