COACHING & FACILITATION

The interest in coaching goes back further than the certification — to a burnout in 2011 that made me think seriously, for the first time, about how creative professionals sustain themselves over the long term. Working in an industry built on passion, often at the expense of everything else, I had experienced first-hand what happens when that equation stops adding up.

For the next decade that interest ran as a thread through everything I did. I read widely, observed carefully, and found myself drawn into informal mentoring and support roles again and again — at conferences, with peers, with the communities I was building. But it remained intuitive, unstructured.

In 2021, co-founding VR Dance Club — a participatory performance project at the intersection of virtual reality, dance, and live experience — deepened that practice in a different direction. Alongside my curation work, I now had an artistic practice of my own, equally rooted in creating conditions for genuine presence and exchange.

In 2022 I formalised the coaching thread: completing a certified training in systemic coaching through the INEKO Institut in cooperation with the University of Cologne. The programme draws on two foundational approaches:

What draws me to this combination is its orientation toward resources and possibility rather than deficit and diagnosis. My work is never about telling someone what to do — it is about creating the conditions for people to discover what they already know.

I don’t come to this work from outside the industry. For fifteen years I have been in rooms with the people I now coach — at conferences, in development studios, on stages, in the communities I’ve helped build. I understand the specific pressures of creative work at the intersection of passion and livelihood, of artistic ambition and commercial reality, because I have lived and worked inside them for a long time.

My practice is shaped by the same values that drive my curation and artistic work: genuine curiosity about people, a commitment to building trust before anything else, and a belief that structured reflection — done well — changes things. I do not bring a fixed agenda into a session. I bring a set of well-tested methods and a lot of careful listening.

Sessions are resource-oriented rather than problem-focused. This means we spend at least as much time mapping what already works — strengths, support structures, past successes — as we do exploring what is getting in the way. From there, we build practical next steps that fit real life, not ideal conditions.

I work with creative professionals across the full spectrum of the games and culture industries: independent developers and founders, teams at established studios, curators, producers, artists, and cultural practitioners. I work in German and English — holding workshops and sessions in both languages, often translating and adapting material on the fly for different audiences.

If you’re navigating a creative block, a team challenge, a career transition — or you simply want to explore whether coaching might be useful right now — the best place to start is a free 30-minute introductory call. No agenda, no obligation.

Individual sessions, workshop bookings, and longer-term formats are all available. I work in German and English, primarily online, and where possible in person.

I offer a small number of reduced-rate sessions for practitioners at early career stages or in financial hardship. If that’s your situation, just mention it when you get in touch — no explanation needed.