My name is Koen Thijssen, born in the Netherlands. Father of two amazing sons and husband to my French wife Mathilde.

In my life sport has always been a leading factor, from working as a rafting and outdoor guide to playing rugby at the highest level in the Netherlands. This is the reason why I decided to study sports management.

During my studies I worked as a part time seller at Decathlon and after my studies I had the opportunity to continue my carreer there. First as a department manager, then store manager in training, before taking the lead of the store in Amsterdam at the age of 23.

Hereafter I worked 3 years from Lille as a global management leader, accompanying countries the world over on management and intercultural issues. Afterwards I became a board member of Germany and director of the headoffice in Stuttgart before moving back to Lille in order to become an international buyer. In my last job in Decathlon I was global product manager for all personalization.

In the job before starting this company I worked as a retail director and board member, responsible for the Benelux region, comprising 120 stores.

During my carreer I lived in 3 different countries, worked in over 25 countries and therefore I have a lot of experience working in multi cultural settings and I speak 4 languages fluently (English, Dutch, French and German).

My strength in all these different jobs was my ability to see where things got unintentionaly stuck. If a company want’s to do all things right, it’s almost inevitable that the KPI’s of certain teams are unknowingly working against each other.

Because I’m passionate about helping people and organizations progress I decided to become a businnes coach and consultant specialized in teams and companies that want to take a human centered approach. I am always looking for ways to use the strengths of each individual team member.

This broad and vast experience makes that I understand the business side of your company and it’s also what I will bring to your company to help accompany your teams to incarnate a mentality of constant change and improvement.