Silvia draws on 20+ years of practical experience in the corporate world. She started her career as a finance journalist and international business correspondent. Later she moved into Corporate Communications for an international asset management firm, before setting up her own communication consultancy with a focus on cross-cultural communication. In this time, she delivered projects for an international Swiss bank, a digital marketing company or held an interim communications role at a UK-based European lobby group in the finance sector. Her coaching work developed organically from working with people who sometimes had to deliver difficult messages to staff or public and public speaking training. With time, coaching became the main part of her work.
As a coach, Silvia works with individuals to help them flourish through 1-to-1 Positive Psychology Coaching. People often ask whether this means life coaching or executive coaching. Yet coaching isn’t an “either/or”, it’s an “and”: Our personal life and personal development are strongly linked with our satisfaction and progress at work. Silvia is able to combine these elements and sees herself as a Positive Psychology Life Coach with a business edge and an Executive Coach with a holistic angle.
People often reach out to her when they are at a point in their life where they want to make a change, but aren’t entirely sure what or how. In coaching conversation and using appropriate tools, Silvia supports her clients through this journey. The best part of her work is seeing people discover opportunities they didn’t think existed, finding motivation to change, grow in the process and thrive on the success they created for themselves.
For example, many of her coachees are in middle-management roles where they need to transition from a subject-matter expert to a strategic leader for their teams. Others are in senior roles but are considering sometimes a complete change, like leaving their organisation and starting up a new business or re-training.
A particular passion of Silvia’s is her work with people who are afraid of public speaking and those who experience challenges in cross-cultural encounters, like expats moving abroad or working in multicultural teams. Silvia has over 20 years’ experience of working in a cross-cultural corporate contexts across various industries, especially finance, corporate communication across sectors and HR and L&D.
Silvia facilitates practical trainings on these topics, including:
- As Lecturer in Coaching Psychology & Module Leader at University of East London, Silvia works with students to learn and apply the key skills and knowledge as future (Positive Psychology) Coaches.
- As adjunct lecturer, Silvia tought coaching psychology students theoretical and practical knowledge and skills for their future career.
- She is the co-creator of the ICF-certified course “Develop your cultural sensitivity for successful cross-cultural coaching, mentoring & leadership” and positive-psychology-based wellbeing programmes.
- As a learning coach, Silvia supports participants of INSEAD’s leadership development courses to embed and implement their learning in their personal and leadership practice.
As Supervisor, Silvia works with coaches, mentors, trainers and leaders to help them become even better in their professional practice to support others.
Silvia is a writer and storyteller at heart. She believes that in every aspect of communication, the written and spoken word express who we are, what we believe in, what we want to achieve. Writing or telling one‘s own life story requires clarity – and it takes courage and self-confidence to tell it to the world and make it happen. Gaining this clarity and confidence is part of the coaching work we do