Remedy 3

How we work

First we listen. Then we share what we see.

Everything stands or falls on a good start.

We always start with a conversation. From there we make a first read, high level, on four things: the team, the strategy, the governance and the energy. That last one is the undercurrent, and it is always in play, whether you name it or not. So we never look at the team alone.

Then we give our advice. What is in it depends on what we see. Sometimes it is one of the things below, sometimes a combination. We only do what works, and we stay involved as long as it adds something.

We take nothing over. We do not take the investor’s seat, and not the board’s either. But we do not stand on the sidelines without commitment. We commit to the result and we stay until it is there. Our analysis is clean, and there is no interest underneath it that is not clear to everyone, no matter who pays. That is exactly why we can say what others will not.

What the advice can include

Concrete things, depending on what we see.

It all begins with a good start. We listen first and make a first read. Only then do we decide together what is needed. That can be one of the things below, or a combination.

A deeper look

Is this team able to deliver on the strategy? We look at the people, the roles and the relationships, and above all at what is really going on. We are not after a verdict, but a sharp picture. We work with conversations and, if the client wants, with an assessment tool. The mix of context and hard measurement makes the picture clear. In ten days at most, you know where you stand.

We bring it back in a conversation, with our read and what we think is needed. Even when the answer is that this team will not deliver on the thesis. We say that too.

We separate three things. Does the key lie with the people, do they have what they need to deliver on what is there? Does the key lie in the structure, does the governance support the work or get in the way? Or does the key lie in the goals themselves, are they sharp and clear enough? Only when you know where the key is, do you know where to start.

Landing in a new role

Guiding a CEO or CTO who is making the step for the first time. Whoever lands in that seat for the first time is on their own from day one, with every eye on them. The first months decide a lot: the trust you earn, the tone you set, the room you get later. That is exactly where the most can be won.

We make sure that first period counts. A sharp start, the strategy turned into a plan, and the work with board and investor up and running from the start. A good start builds trust that lasts, for the new leader and for the company that comes to rely on them. Too important to leave to chance.

Executive coaching

For anyone at the top who needs someone who gets it. Our coaching does not start with getting to know your world. We have sat there ourselves, in the same seat, under the same pressure. That saves time.

We assume that you already know what is really going on and what is needed. Our job is not to fill that in, but to make the space where those insights come up in you. That asks us to be careful with the roles of coach, mentor and advisor. When we think it is useful to put on the advisor’s hat for a moment, we name it and we ask first. We are convinced it is stronger when the insight is your own.

We look at the strategy, but just as much at the energy in the team and the relationships underneath. The undercurrent is always in play.

Governance and collaboration

With governance we look at three layers: what is actually required, what is necessary, and what the people in the system really need. Those three get mixed up more often than you would think. What was once set up for practical reasons becomes a given over time. No one asks anymore whether it still fits. And then something meant as support slowly becomes a burden: meetings with people who have no role there, roles that overlap, expectations that are never spoken but very much felt.

We look at what is on paper and at what actually happens. When you pull those three layers apart again, there is almost always room to breathe. Where it is off, we help set it straight.

We do not know this only from the outside. We have sat on supervisory boards ourselves and set up governance ourselves. We know how it feels on both sides of the table.

Supervisory board evaluation

Does the board work the way it should? A supervisory board is legally required to evaluate itself, and we run that evaluation. We look at how the board functions, how it relates to the executive board and the shareholder, and whether the oversight does what it should. Not the statutes, but the practice: what happens in the meeting and what happens outside it.

The board gets a clear picture of where it pinches. And when we think it is useful, we also advise on how to move forward.

Why us

Success lives in the undercurrent.

When it is right, it feels effortless.

Not only in the strategy, but in the energy underneath. Not only in clear goals, but in how people relate to each other. Behind every transition that works lies a network you cannot see: strategy, culture and intent that are in tune. As long as that current runs right, friction dissolves on its own.

That is where we work. Not at the surface, where the org charts and the reports sit, but underneath, where it is decided whether it works. The answer is not in hiring good people. It is in the right people, in the right place, in the right relationship to each other.

The three of us are more than each of us alone. Three perspectives, one read on what is really going on. We have done it ourselves, at the top and in the depths, and we bring level-headedness and calm to a place where everyone is under pressure.

Who we are

Three perspectives, one read.

Dieuwke Boersma

Advisor · Coach · Mentor

Dieuwke acts from deeply held values. She wants to use her talents to build businesses and teams that make the world better. Warm and creative by nature.

She worked as CTO in a fast-growing solar company, among other roles. She knows the world of funding and acquisitions from the inside. She knows how to make large teams perform and how to connect tech and strategy.

The only one on our team who truly understands the tech side. She knows how far a survival strategy can take you, and also where it can get in your way.

Esther Goedman

Search specialist · Advisor · Coach

Esther wants to use her network and her talents to get people moving. She believes in the power of migration and diversity. She sees in every person the potential for growth that was always already there.

She built Goedman Executive Search in a competitive market. More than twenty years of putting the right people in the right place across PE and VC portfolios.

A certified nature and wildlife guide. She leads our trails in Africa.

Sabine Kloos

Advisor · Coach · Mentor

Sabine works where it chafes. She believes the decisive questions, in boardrooms too, are personal ones. And that things get lighter the moment you dare to ask them.

Former CEO and COO, entrepreneur. She worked in healthcare, childcare and leisure, through fast growth, buy-and-build and PE cycles. At home in governance and in the dynamic between investor and board.

And she knows from her own experience what sustained pressure does to a person. Not as theory. As a memory in her body. It has not made her softer. It has made her sharper on what is really going on.

REMEDY 3