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About Manu

What's going on for me right now

My commitment

Currently, I live in Tervuren, a small city near Brussels, with my wife Angela and my two kids, Julie and Liam. I devote most of my time to five activities:  

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  • My coaching practice mainly focused on helping corporate leaders develop their leadership presence and impact. 

  • My recruitment activities where I help organisations recruit high-performing, inspiring and responsible leaders. 

  • Our family project. Angela and I work hard on the creation of an eco-village including a 25-home cohousing neighbourhood. Our dream is to rethink the way we live together on this planet. In our community, we want to integrate ecological, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of sustainability.

  • The simple moments I enjoy with my family and the other communities I care about. 

  • The personal practices that support my own exploration of a life with more meaningful productivity and serenity.

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For the past decade, I have been committed to helping the communities around me enhance meaningful productivity and achieve inner peace. 

 

I am convinced that exemplary leadership is available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it.

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I gratefully serve clients from

My work

I founded Ninedots with the ambition to accelerate business leadership that creates lasting impact and well being. Today, besides my executive recruitment practice, I coach leaders. I help them identify what they stand for and increase performance through a better relationship with their own humanity.

My focus is on individual coaching of business leaders (VP, Senior Mgt, Entrepreneurs and High potential staff), running leadership development programs and leading some specific executive recruitment projects.

My coaching approach, called Embodied Leadership, integrates technics inspired by martial arts and neuroscience. With it, leaders develop their leadership presence, their impact and their ability to stay grounded and effective inside of conflict, uncertainty and discomfort.

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I have personally coached and hired hundreds of leaders and teams within large organizations and fast growing SMEs, including Coca-Cola cy, Euroclear, Elia, Belfius, Suez, P&G, LVMH, Swift, Volkswagen, Bridgestone, Hilti, UPS,  Proximus, Bpost, BNP Paribas, and Douwe Egberts among others.

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My methods are grounded in my own experiences in coaching and business. ​My work is also influenced by my own joyful journey of personal and spiritual development.​
 

How coaching changed my life

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Before I started coaching, my professional life followed a pretty traditional route: I graduated from business school with a Masters in Management. I worked in recruitment for 12 years before setting up my own very successful recruitment business.

​​But I felt disconnected, unfulfilled, as if something was missing. When a friend suggested coaching, I took part in a wolrd class leadership development programme. And it changed everything.

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I realised that I made all my decisions with my mind and neglected what my emotions and my body were trying to tell me. I realised that my assumptions were not “the way things were” as I had always supposed – they were just my interpretation of things. And I realised that all these new insights weren’t going to change anything unless I put them into practice, every day. So that’s what I did.

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Now I can observe and adapt my own behaviours to produce more positive outcomes in my work and my personal life. I make more meaningful decisions. I’m a happier, more balanced person, fulfilled in my work and my life.

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It’s not always easy. It requires discipline and commitment. But every day is better because I’m on this journey.

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We started nearly by chance and ended by sharing one of the most meaningful discussions I ever had. Manu truly has a gift and shares it very generously with others.
Marie Gigot, Managing Director - Le Creuset BNL
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My training

Besides my MBA, I'm a certified Executive Coach from HEC Paris and an Executive Somatic Coach from the Strozzi Institute for Embodied leadership in California. I am also a PCC coach from the ICF and a certified coach from Newfield Network in Colorado .​

My background

Languages
 

  • Coaching is available in English and French
     

  • Fluent in Dutch

Academic qualifications
 

  • Masters in Business Engineering - 1994, Solvay Business School, Brussels
     

  • Advanced Master in International Management - 1995

Training and certification
 

  • Advanced Executive Coaching certification, HEC Paris

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  • Professional Certified Coach (PCC), International Coaching Federation (ICF)
     

  • Certified Ontological Coach (NCC), Newfield Network (Colorado)
     

  • Certified Somatic Coach (SISC), Strozzi Institute – Center for Embodied Leadership (California)
     

  • Certified Facilitator, The leadership circle profileTM 
     

  • Practitioner Mindfulness Stress-based Reduction (MSBR) Programme, Emergences (Belgium)

Professional experience
 

  • 1997-2007: Director (Marketing and HR Services)
     

  • 2007: Founded Ninedots Executive Recruitment
     

  • 2012: Founded Ninedots Executive Coaching
     

  • 2018: Lecturer at Solvay Business School on topic related to presence and impact

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  • 2019: Teacher at Strozzi Institute for Embodied Leadership
     

  • Registered for outplacement services

More about coaching...

Find out more about the different steps and benefits of my Embodied leadership coaching programme.

Is coaching right for you? When should you consider coaching? Is it really worth?

Increase clarity around your career and take the actions needed to transition to your next executive career step.

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