Leadership beyond the Surface
Recurring problems appear in many forms above the surface, but their true engine lies hidden below.
Conflict. Complexity. Connection.
I work with leaders and teams who are ready to engage with what lies beneath the surface — where recurring conflicts, complexity and disconnection often take root. By working at this deeper level of the system, clients swiftly restore clarity, unlock movement, and create space for what truly matters.
Resolving Deep-Rooted Team Conflicts
When tensions keep resurfacing — even after previous attempts to solve them — I guide teams to move beyond entrenched patterns. We uncover what’s really going on beneath the surface and work through it with honesty and courage. The result: renewed trust, clearer collaboration, and a healthier organisational dynamic.
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Senior team alignment and conflict resolution — ½ day – 2 day (deep-work)
Create psychological safety without losing edge and accountability
Identify with precision and shift repeating interaction patterns in the room
Agree in an embodied way on decision rights, roles and operating rhythm
Leading for Earth, Enterprise & Next Generations
Leaders today face the most critical question of our time:
‘How can we lead for both enterprise success and planetary health?’
At the heart of this 1.5-hour to 4-day tailored experience lies Constellation Work. A science-backed, experiential method that combines thinking with sensing and feeling. Typically, participants position peers in the physical space as elements of the challenges and dilemmas they face, such as: ‘competition, nature, shareholder expectations, personal values, future generations, etc.
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This enables them to:
Experience the Interconnections: Go beyond intellectual understanding to experience the complex relationships between parts of the system.
Reveal Breakthrough Insights: Uncover solutions often hidden in traditional problem-solving approaches.
Bridge the Knowing-Doing gap: Embody sustainable strategies and act with impact.
Who should attend?
C-Suite Executives and Leaders: willing to sit with questions versus imposing answers.
Change-makers: curious to redefine success by aligning profit with ecological and social impact.
Decision-Makers: Ready to embrace innovative strategies.
Why now?
As sustainable policies lose ground globally, the urgency for leaders to act has never been greater. This is your opportunity to shape a legacy of ecological, human, and organizational resilience.
Personal Guidance for Leaders
In one-on-one sessions, I offer leaders a clear mirror and a steady guide. Together, we reconnect you with your inner compass, help you navigate uncertainty, past experiences, and bring more clarity, courage and alignment into your leadership journey.
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There is no single model of leadership. Context, personality and personal history shape the leader. When unprocessed painful experiences drive today’s choices, performance and wellbeing pay the price. This work is for leaders who want to resolve root patterns and act with clarity and courage.
Engagement options
1) Executive deep-dive (1:1 intensives) 2 - 4 hours per session
Resolve recurring personal patterns hindering your leadership quality
Transform past personal themes or trauma so they don’t inhibit your choices, and leadership effectiveness
Expand your capacity under pressure; lead with clarity and self-trust
2) Constellation intensives (1:1 or small group) 2 hours – 2 days
Constellation work maps out how people, values, history and power interrelate—so you can see, sense and feel what’s stuck, reclaim agency, and move forward with more clarity and alignment.
Experience interconnections inside complex stakeholder fields
Reveal breakthrough insights often missed in traditional analysis
Bridge the knowing–doing gap; embody new ways of leading on a challenged planet
Upcoming events
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IRG COP30 CMO Summit Rio de Janeiro
Hosting systemic constellation work at the IRG COP30 CMO Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Ahead of COP30, I will collaborate with 60 CMOs, sustainability experts, and marketing industry leaders to explore and define the role of the CMO in relation to the CSO. This Summit aims to foster deeper understanding and strategic alignment between marketing and sustainability leadership as we prepare for the challenges ahead.
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IRG100 Leadership Program NYC/Oxford
This program runs from January–June 2026. I will host systemic constellation sessions focused on the CEO, CFO, CHRO, CSO, and CIO roles. The IRG100 strategies were developed with Oxford Saïd Business School and industry bodies representing boards and these functions.
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Going Deeper Retreat Byron Bay
Retreat for Helpers, leaders, and seekers
The best way to deepen our work as Helpers, leaders, and seekers, and to move forward in life ourselves, is to better know who we are. This retreat is designed for those who are ready to go deeper into themselves, their relationships, and their contribution to the world.
About Vincent de Klerk
Vincent (1971) is a highly regarded expert in conflict resolution, organizational dynamics, and constellation work. He has over 30 years of experience assisting executives and leadership teams in solving complex challenges.
He combines extensive education with deep expertise in psychology, sociology, and systems thinking to address the critical interplay between business success, organizational relationships, and planetary health.
His work and life are deeply influenced by his time with indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest and by the pressing ecological and climatological challenges he has witnessed in working in countries around the world.
These experiences give him a fresh perspective that resonates with leaders across industries, including the Financial Sector, Hospitality, Health Care, Organic Fashion, Government, Education, and IT.
Known for his creativity, sharp insights, and practical approach, Vincent excels at getting to the heart of complex problems. His work delivers meaningful and lasting changes for leaders, teams, and organizations.
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How I Work
To support organizations in times of change, I work from a set of principles and perspectives—not from one school or fixed model. The combination shifts with each assignment, depending on the question at hand.
Holistic approach
I view an organization as a living system: it moves, adapts to its environment, and needs to stay healthy. When you change one part, the rest is affected—including the whole. An intervention only makes sense if its meaning is recognized and reinforced by the other parts. I therefore work with stakeholders to align understanding and support.
Context-led diagnosis
A challenge rarely stands alone. By sensing into the wider system around an issue, the real friction often becomes visible quickly—sometimes in surprising ways. I use systemic insights and, when useful, organizational constellations.
Embodied, experience-based
Beyond exchanging knowledge and insights, I invite people to work physically in space during group sessions. This spatial, embodied work is powerful because it anchors insights in the body—not just in the head.
Practical and direct application
New insights are immediately applied in everyday work through self-defined actions. These are not extra tasks; they shape how necessary work is carried out, informed by what has been learned. This is often called triple-loop action learning.
Safe learning climate
People—and thus organizations—make bigger moves when they feel safe. That is when the new can take form and develop. I always create a climate where experimentation and reflection are possible.
Essence and multi perspectives
I think and act from the essence of the issue and let all actions follow from there. I keep a steady balance between the perspectives of clients, management, and employees—so interventions are congruent, credible, and durable.
Co-creation
I build on the organization’s own strengths. I prefer to partner with internal people to design the trajectory, training, or advisory work together. Only then does it become truly theirs, not something pushed in from the outside.
Clear feedback
I reflect back everything meaningful I notice in the organization. An outsider’s observations often illuminate what the organization is grappling with. I share these even when they sit outside my primary scope—if they can contribute to success.
Work History
See also: LinkedIn.
· 2025 — IRG100 — Systemic retreat facilitation in New York City and Oxford, with a CMO‑centric focus on C‑suite relationships and sustainable growth.
· Amsterdam UMC — Integration facilitator for Nephrology, Vascular Surgery, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Urology, Colorectal Surgery, and Endocrinology across AMC and VUmc; coaching surgeons, medical specialists, and department heads through merger processes.
· City of Amsterdam (and others) — Chair, Complex Issues and Conflicts.
· Gelre Hospitals — On behalf of the Executive Board: research, advice, and guidance for Obstetrics and the Operating Theatre.
· Proteion Thuis — Coaching the Executive Board and Works Council.
· de Baak Leadership Program — Designing and delivering the module on systemic thinking and practice.
· LUMC and HMC — Supporting collaboration between Neuro‑Interventional Radiologists within the University Neurovascular Center.
· ROC Friese Poort — Process facilitator and co‑designer for the transformation toward value‑creating, adaptive leadership; large‑scale and small‑scale learning events; executive coaching.
· The Hague University of Applied Sciences — Supporting collaboration between the Executive Board and University Council.
· Estinea Care — Training, coaching, and advising board and MT; extensive use of organizational constellations.
· Port of Rotterdam and Crocs Europe — Guiding, training, and coaching Young Potentials.
· ING Group (Bank and Insurance) — Co‑creating and facilitating two international leadership conferences; also co‑designed and delivered a 2015 leadership conference for UWV.
· OLVG — Supporting collaboration between OLVG East and West in Pediatrics.
· Philadelphia Care — Designing and delivering a system‑wide learning and change program (training, advisory, coaching, intervision) from executive team and regional directors to 6,200 support professionals; training internal trainers.
· Inspection Council (Netherlands) — Designing an experiential day to increase field effectiveness for inspectors across several national inspectorates (more than 1,000 participants).
· UWV — “De Buitenwereld” — Concept lead and delivery of an innovative learning environment to experience services from the customer’s perspective; 22,000 participants; winner of the 2008 Galjaard Prize for proven, innovative public‑sector communication. Led selection, onboarding, and supervision of 50 trainers and the actors of Boertien and Vergouwen Overduin.
· UWV, CWI, and Municipalities — Designed around 20 programs to guide and coach management teams through culture shifts toward customer‑centric work; chaired conferences and numerous smaller sessions.
· UWV — Project Manager, Customer Testing and Coaching — Built the customer experience meter and collaboration meter to make customer‑centricity measurably manageable; created learning and improvement plans and supported management in steering.
Education
· 2022–2024 — Principium Zelfzorg — Bodywork training (somatic practice).
· 2015 — Choy Consultants — System‑theoretical interventions.
· 2013 — Bert Hellinger Institute — Family constellations for organizational practitioners.
· 2012 — Insights — Certified practitioner.
· 2010–2011 — Bert Hellinger Institute — System Dynamics in Organizations, 24‑day international program in systemic organizational consulting using organizational constellations.
· 2003–2005 — IASS‑International — Working on the Boundary, a two‑year international program for senior OD consultants and coaches (systems theory, group relations, Gestalt, transactional analysis). Certified by the European Association for Coaches (EAS).
· 1994–1999 — Utrecht University — General Social Sciences (Communication, Culture and Identity). Thesis research on trainer steering behaviors versus contemporary learning theory.
· 1989–1994 — Academy of Human Resource Studies (Tilburg) — Labor Market Services, major in Training and Education. Thesis: a practical guide to interviewing techniques for employment counselors.
Profile
· Sharp and clear in guiding the psychological dynamics of change.
· Translates paper reality into lived experience.
· Consistently balances the perspectives of client, management, and employees.
· Brings a wide repertoire of social‑psychological interventions.
· Works with safety, lightness, and depth.Description text goes here
What Clients Say
Galith Nadbornik, former Vice President at Gartner
For those wondering whether or not to join, the first question to ask yourself is: Do I believe that wisdom resides only in my mind or intellect?
If your answer is “I don’t know” or “no,” then join the session. With Vincent’s facilitation, you will (re)discover your embodied wisdom and the depth of our interconnectedness — not only as a human species, but as part of the larger, complex ecosystem we belong to.
Paul O’Donovan Rossa, Founder Platinum Coaching (USA)
The constellation with Vincent was an intense learning experience — and in unexpected ways.
It offered a different way of engaging with information and questioning the limited sensory perspective we often hold, shaped by our habit of rushing past the need to deeply examine reality and our assumptions about it. This experience opened some doors for me in that regard — and, it seemed, for everyone present. That shift is a valuable foundation for further dialogue and decision-making.
Elza den Hertog, Managing Director of National preventive health screening programs
A Deep and Targeted Experience
Working with Vincent is an experience that is both profound and purposeful.
He combines sharp systemic insight with a clear, results-oriented approach.
What stood out to me was his ability to swiftly get to the heart of an issue and address it with precision and impact.
He sees what works, identifies where the blocks are, and moves directly toward meaningful resolution.
Ido Tal, founder and game producer at We Create Stuff
I participated in Vincent’s constellation workshop during the Kinnernet conference in Spain, without any prior knowledge of what to expect. It turned out to be a powerful and enriching experience in human expression and dialogue.
Vincent has a remarkable ability to create a space where people can express themselves fully — not just through words, but through movement and presence. His facilitation invites individuals to explore personal and shared concerns by forming a living “constellation” with their bodies.
What stood out most was how inclusive the process was. Regardless of personality type or background, everyone found a way to meaningfully engage. It was a deeply human and memorable experience.
I look forward to seeing more of Vincent’s work and highly recommend this practice to others.
Or Daniel, Senior Manager, Global IT Learning & Development Lead, Teva Pharmaceuticals
The constellation session with Vincent was truly unique. It allowed me to connect with the larger field we operate in — not just intellectually, but on a deeply felt level. I walked away with a clearer understanding of our collective context, knowing what do to, and a renewed sense of purpose. It was inspiring and expansive.
Caroline Beentjes, Executive Director of Woonzorggroep Samen
Trusted Guide in Complex Organisational Dynamics
Vincent has worked with several teams and groups within our organisation.
Initially, we brought him in because of his strong systemic perspective and his ability to intervene from that lens.
He listens deeply, senses what is needed, and chooses interventions that not only make sense — but are also feasible within the context.
This ability has earned him significant trust, and over time, he has become involved in increasingly complex challenges.
Catalyst for Organisational Growth
Vincent has played a meaningful role in advancing our organisation’s development.
His contributions have helped us navigate key turning points with clarity and depth.
The impact of his work goes beyond the sessions themselves — it shapes the way we think and act together as an organisation.
Sharp Listener, Independent Thinker
What I personally value most is his unique ability to listen and feel into what’s really happening — often beneath the surface.
His assessments are independent, clear, and grounded.
He doesn’t shy away from discomfort. On the contrary: he names it with care, and that’s what sparks real reflection and progress.
Lotte de Bruijn, CEO of Strict
Empathy and Clarity, in One Presence
Vincent truly embodies what it means to be gentle with people and clear on the issue.
He creates a safe and open environment where everything is welcome — no stone left unturned, no discomfort left unnamed.
And he does so with sincerity, compassion, and a sharp focus on the shared objective.
Sharp, Empathic, and Action-Oriented
His approach is at once incisive, empathic, and practical.
This combination leads to real movement and growth — in individuals, teams, and entire organisations.
Karolin Helbig, Consultant Top Management McKinsey and Self-employed
Vincent de Klerk facilitated a profoundly impactful constellation session with a large group of strangers in what initially seemed like a challenging setting—a room that felt too small for the task. Yet, thanks to Vincent's exceptional skill and intuitive leadership, the session unfolded seamlessly, and any concerns about the space quickly dissolved.
What struck me most was Vincent’s ability to create an atmosphere where participants felt both empowered and supported. He skillfully held the balance between offering freedom to explore and maintaining clarity of purpose. His sensitivity to the group’s dynamics, to what was present in the field, and to what wanted to emerge was truly remarkable.
Vincent transformed what could have been a difficult session into a moving and meaningful experience. I left feeling deeply touched and genuinely grateful for his expert facilitation.