Certified Formies Coaches
Our Certified Formies Coaches (CFCs) assist with self-leadership in one-on-one coaching and group coaching sessions. They are also available as mentors for participants of our coach training program.
Kathrin Köster
Founder,
Core Inspirer
Adrian Kreppel
Co-Founder,
Core Inspirer
Mark Baumgärtner
Certified Formies Coach, Mentor
Corinne Besançon
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Sabine Egger
Certified Formies Coach
Gina Eitelbrös
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Sylwia Falandysz
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Zebib Ghile †
We cherish her memory
Astrid Gradischnig
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Karin Greiner
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Sibylle Gustke
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Nina Kleiber
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor, Co-Creator
Angelika Moniak
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Maria Mokler
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Tatjana Oppitz
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Michael Raum
Certified Formies Coach, Mentor
Natalie Rodriguez
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor, Co-Creator
Stefanie Rodriguez-Maier
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Isabel Sandel
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Sanja Selak
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Gerald Schlosser
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Carsten Scholian
Certified Formies Coach,
Mentor
Prof. Dr. Kathrin Köster
Founder
Kathrin stands for innovation and creativity. She has always been attracted by otherness and the unknown. She feels inspired by different cultures and ventured out to learn Mandarin as a teenager. She fell in love with Daoism, and philosophical Confucianism when she started to study Chinese culture. When she lived and worked in Japan, she became familiar with lean production, practiced Zen Buddhism and experienced how difficult it can be to be a foreigner.
She is a bridge between the worlds: classical businesses, start-ups and academia. She thrives on transcending borders, be it between organizations or cultures.
Her passion is teaching and sharing experience. Kathrin is a teaching professional with more than 25 years of teaching experience in universities and business schools around the world. In the last years she has focused on leadership, self-leadership and the development of awareness.
As the vice-president for life-long learning of Heilbronn University (Germany) she introduced integrative approaches in work-based learning for part-time students. Her online Agile Leadership course, co-developed with Vienna University for Economics and Business (Austria) aims at building CORAFA qualities.
Dr. Adrian Kreppel
Co-Founder
Adrian is a pioneer. He is convinced that the imaginable is doable. As a patent attorney, he has helped many of his clients to further develop their new technologies. As a trained computer scientist Adrian has ventured into artificial intelligence already in the 1990s. He always has been fascinated by self-optimizing systems.
With his IT background, Adrian approaches the subject of learning in a programming way. Adrian is a very sharp thinker who loves logic. He questions everything that seems to have a notion of inconsistency.
This makes him a very honest and effective coach. He easily identifies others’ mental programs and can help them to go beyond their self-limitations. He is like a mirror with a striking difference – he talks and gives sometimes uncomfortable feedback.
Adrian thrives on unusual ways of thinking and acting. He can live this side without being arrested as an author of suspense stories. Currently, he works in Germany and Italy.
Maria Mokler (M.A.; B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
‘Determination, courage, resilience’ – that’s what Maria stands for.
15 years ago, she decided to leave her home country Russia and started a new in Germany. It took enormous determination to integrate herself in a foreign country without losing her own identity.
Maria loves the uniqueness of each individual waiting to be discovered and developed. She has experienced herself how different life feels when you dare to live your uniqueness.
It is an art to make our inner diamond shine. This is what she does as a Certified Formies Coach: supporting her coachees on their winding path to their true, wise and versatile SELF. She helps especially women to become self-confident and love themselves with the power of their femininity. But also her male coachees benefit from Maria’s unconventional thinking and love her direct communication style.
Her daily leadership and coaching challenge are Maria’s two sons. Her family is a great training field and source of experience she shares with parents and their adolescent children.
Maria’s motto: ‘Never stop believing in you!’
Carsten Scholian (Certified Yoga Teacher)
Certified Formies Coach
Carsten stands for curiosity, openness and a strong desire for personal transformation.
After several years in a leading position as a controller, an inner longing brought him to yoga. He summoned all his courage and quit his job to travel through India for several months. There, he intensively engaged with the timeless wisdom of yoga.
Inspired by the journey, he began to train as a body-worker and became a practitioner in rolfing.
Carsten now lives in Vienna, where he works as Head of Controlling at a renowned business school and also runs his own yoga studio. Teaching Yoga is his passion. He also runs programs to train yoga teachers.
His special talent is to share his experiences with yoga and bodywork helping people to get connected to themselves and their inner source. With his mindfulness, he creates a space where everyone feels comfortable and feels appreciated.
As a Certified Formies Coach he goes beyond bodywork and includes mental and emotional aspects in the work of personal development. Above all, the creative Formies approach helps him to leverage self-reflection and awareness of his coachees.
With regular meditation practice and the continuous expansion of his own consciousness Carsten increasingly experiences the beauty of life in its abundance.
His guiding principle: Follow your heart!
Dr. med. Sabine Egger
Certified Formies Coach
Courage comes from the heart! That’s what Sabine stands for. After 15 years of a successful clinic career including functional stomach problems and the odd status migraenosus, she reinvented herself in the midst of life. Although she was passionate about her work as an anesthesiologist, she increasingly felt suffocated by life and work in hospitals.
After her first slipped disc in her early thirties, she set out on a quest for sustainable health. Her thirst for knowledge brought her to Mind Body Medicine and the United States of You. Since then, the Formies have accompanied her on all her travels to windy beaches for kite surfing or powder slopes for skiing.
Sabine is a multi-passionate individual, a digital nomad energized by freedom. With inspirational passion she coaches others to lead a free, self-determined life full of joy. When she is not working, she is cuddling cats, reading a good book or sipping coffee with pleasure.
Mark Baumgärtner
Certified Formies Coach
“What is more glorious than gold?” asked the king. “Light,” replied the serpent. “What is more nurturing than light?” asked the king. “Conversation,” replied the latter.
(Goethe)
What makes a conversation meaningful? Mark has found answers to this question in the work with his inner team, the Formies: good conversations entail development. This applies first and foremost to oneself, i.e. exploring oneself in inner dialogue with one’s different facets and bringing them together in order to increasingly recognize and live one’s own wisdom.
Mark applies these insights from self-development to his role as a sales VP with a big team. He dedicates many hours to dialogues with his team members, as for him good teamwork always goes hand in hand with constant exchange at eye level.
Mark lives in a patchwork family where he happily applies his coach skills to energizing and meaningful dialogues with his three grown-up daughters. As an authentic coach he focusses on conflict management in the aftermath of divorces and loves to work with his wife to continuously grow a fulfilling partnership.
For Mark, self-care is at the heart of relationship building with oneself. That’s why he consciously makes time for his hobbies such as motorcycling, hiking, playing tennis and swimming.
Natalie Rodriguez (B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
Natalie loves the sea, the sun and palm trees!
Maybe that’s why she has always been called ‘sunshine’. Always positive, confident and understanding of everything and everyone.
The big and significant difference between before and after she started her journey of inner exploration is: she now REALLY feels the sunshine from inside and consciously decides whether the sun always has to shine… She learned to hear and feel her inner voices and to allow herself to accept her shadows as well.
She is fascinated by the mysteries of life, which is why she always finds the courage to follow the deep desire of her soul. At the age of 19, she travelled alone through India, Indonesia and Cuba. En route she quickly realized that she could not find the WOW-factor she was looking for, even if she was at all those marvellous places she always wanted to be. She finally discovered this WOW-factor she had been yearning for in an unexpected place: in her inner universe. She IS the WOW factor, no matter where the flow of life takes her.
Her purpose is to show everyone how WONDER-full life can be, every day anew, and that no-one should settle for a life where you are always waiting for the weekend, vacation or retirement. Life is worth being filled with WOW factors!
Her motto: ‘Desires want to be heard and satisfied. Suppressing them ends in dissatisfaction. Be brave and follow what calls you.’
Astrid Gradischnig (MBA)
Certified Formies Coach
Clarity is the key to transformation. That is what Astrid stands for. Since her childhood Astrid has been keen to understand how the world and people are functioning. Driven by that curiosity she explored the USA, Australia and New Zealand before finally heading to Vienna, where she has been working for the last 20 years as a leader and project manager for international corporates within the IT and financial industry.
Painful spinal disc problems coupled with exhaustion redirected her to a different way of travelling. She explored her “inner universe” transforming undetected issues and patterns , understanding their interrelations and gaining more clarity. This formed the basis of her leadership attitude: “Leading people requires a high degree of self-leadership”.
Based on her strengthened self-awareness and self-care, Astrid is supporting people on their self-awareness journey. She helps them to use all their resources and leverage their full potential with more clarity on their individual essence for a joyful private and business life.
In her roles as Transformation Architect and Certified Formies Coach Astrid is accompanying people and organizations along their transformation journey creating profound impact by open-hearted support, clear consciousness and powerful intuition. Sharing her own experiences with passion and without flintching, Astrid acts as a trustful and authentic partner and coach.
Her colleagues appreciate Astrid as the soul of the organization and her coachees see her as a beacon along the way of finding their true north and exploring new paths.
Michael Raum
Certified Formies Coach
“Everyone should have a Michael Raum in their life.” That’s what many people say who know Michael.
Michael seems to be a living contradiction: on the one hand a guy like a tree, on the other hand very sensitive. His training as a CFC coach has strengthened his ‘softer’ side, making him even more multi-faceted and deeper as a person.
Michael can sense people and their energy which can be a little scary. He senses their talents, abilities and the coachees’ vocation. In Michael’s opinion, everyone has a mission on our planet. It is worthwhile discovering it with him and leading a harmonious life in the now moment.
Michael is both courageous and humble. A visionary who quickly recognizes connections, pinpoints problems and turns them into structured challenges. He brings clarity, ease and security.
To recharge his batteries, he likes to be in nature and doing workout. He regularly goes sailing with his son in Croatia. As a team of father and son, they founded the edtech start-up ‘Mindmee’ to train young people from the age of 16 in the area of so-called Future Skills.
His motto: “Being human is simple”.
Nina Kleiber (B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
Solid as a rock – challenging and kind alike
Life is an ocean. It’s your choice to swim in it with your own lifebelt, or to drown in the waves. Nina will not rescue you, but will show you exactly how to use your lifebelt so you will be able to keep your head above the water. As a compassionate listener, she has a talent for asking the right questions and putting things in a nutshell. She helps you to develop your own swimming style, even in rough sea.
Nina was always looking for what would make her happy and what she would be good at. After studying business administration, learning the ropes to manage a hotel, diverse jobs in various fields, she was absolutely sure about one thing: nothing will ever be the right thing for her. So she gave up the pursuit for a fulfilling job and settled in for a safe income hoping for holidays and weekends to bring a bit of joy. All of a sudden, though, Nina’s compromise with life fell apart.
She acted upon her inner scream for breaking out and enrolled in an education program (Formies approach) that was meaningful to her – the first time in her life 🙂 – because it brought her real insights about herself. She was drawn into the joy of getting to know herself and what stood in her way to lead a fulfilling life.
Now, she enjoys getting inspired by the little things of life. She is thrilled by creating her own life without any second thoughts on what others might think of her.
She discovered hidden passion in singing aloud, and built up a totally new relation to one of her best friends, her body!
Karin Greiner (Pharmacist)
Certified Formies Coach
Trust – Responsibility – Understanding….
….are the fundament of Karin’s actions and the basis of her vision: companies and communities characterized by harmony and peaceful coexistence.
Long before founding her own small community, her family, she was fascinated to explore what it means to be human. She learned it the hard way including a failed marriage. Raising two daughters on her own was a real challenge that took a toll on her strength. However, those difficult times encouraged her to face her fears and listen more to the voice of her heart. She courageously decided to explore her heart deeper and follow her feelings.
As a pharmacist, her focus also is on people and their wellbeing, mainly with a focus on health. In the course of disruptive global changes and her personal development during her training as a Certified Formies Coach, she discovered her passion for establishing the voice of the heart in organization and leadership. With growing joy, she is committed to clarity between employees that she fosters with curiosity, wit and calmness.
For Karin, smooth communication between individual organizational members is like a gift to herself: It allows her to live and experience her vision of harmonious, productive togetherness on a daily basis.
Karin recharges her batteries singing in a choir and roaming the woods and meadows with her dog. Watch out for her when you stroll around Lake Constance 😊
Stefanie Rodriguez-Maier (B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
“Courage is key. Every day calls for courage to take your own decisions for your own life.”
Standing in for yourself, day by day, facing your fears, listening to your inner voices, trusting them and stepping into the flow of life – that’s what life is about for Stefanie.
Stefanie has trained this intensively with the Formies approach. Her biggest insight in the course of this self-development process: dreams, plans or intentions can be grandiose – as long as they are not put into action, they remain grandiose dreams and plans.
The true challenge is to put them into action which requires courage.
Courage, the first of the CORAFA qualities, those qualities that are so important for all of us in times of uncertainty. Building up her courage muscle has become Stefanie’s daily routine.
As a mother and trained social education worker, Stefanie’s call is to encourage children, parents and all those involved in education to go their own way of discovering and unleashing the human potential. She is all in to contribute to a holistic way of education combining head, heart and hand. Stefanie stands for the joy of learning – about ourselves as human beings. She is at her best in plain nature, inspired by the power of flowers and trees.
Corinne Besançon (Reiki-Therapist)
Certified Formies Coach
Freedom – Responsibility – Balance
“Enough is enough, I have to change something”! This decision led her to The Joy Academy. Corinne decided to assume full responsibility for her life.
She discovered her gift as a child, and got more familiar with it when she worked with a healer. As a very sensitive person Corinne has the ability to scan people and feel them very deeply. Since 2022 she offers healing treatments based on an additional Reiki training and also uses her special talent for coaching.
Corinne has gone through very tough times. She raised her two sons on her own. At the same time she worked for 20 years in different companies and different industries on management level and got to know many kinds of leadership styles and personalities.
One day, though, exhaustion made her rethink her patterns, beliefs and fears. This brought her to an all-encompassing self-transformation journey requiring all her courage and full trust.
She learned to manage her fears and changed her thought habits. She discovered new talents as well as confidence in life. Corinne reconnected with nature, her sanctuary since early childhood. That’s also where she enjoys doing coaching sessions and healing treatments.
Corinne’s mission is to heal people and organizations on a physical, mental and spiritual level and to accompany them in their transformation and further development process.
Her motto: “Be true to yourself and listen to your inner voice(s) 😊”.
Sylwia Falandysz (Dipl.-Kffr.)
Certified Formies Coach
“Sylwia, you are a very courageous woman.” This is the feedback Sylwia has been getting from strangers ever since she embarked on her inner transformation journey.
Sylwia loves authenticity and freedom: to stand in for oneself, to appreciate one’s talents and to integrate them into everyday life. To live in flow and creativity, that’s her motivation. Whoever has tasted freedom like she has doesn’t want to give it away anymore.
Sylwia has a knack for interior design and themes such as colors, materials and visual order. She loves to create beautiful and coherent spaces that transcend clarity and well-being. It is paramount to her that people feel comfortable and cosy in clearly structured and non-cluttered rooms. To her, pure does not mean uncomfortable.
With her sensitivity she quickly identifies misalignments and disbalances. She has a talent for restoring balance, in outer spaces such as apartments and inner spaces such as the mental condition of her coachees.
In winter, Sylwia is in bliss on her skis, and in summer, she enjoys her new passion kite surfing bringing her inner contentment.
Her great love is her greyhound Miss Sophie, who has been accompanying her since 14 years of her exciting life.
Her motto: “Life can be easy!”
Gerald Schlosser
Certified Formies Coach
Creative Solutions – Focus – Implementation – Perseverance
Gerald has the nick name Mc Gyver: a man who finds solutions for very challenging situations with little or seemingly useless material.
In his private and professional life, he is true to his motto: there is always a solution, preferably an easy and non-complicated one. After all, life is easier that way.
As a seasoned manager and team leader in the field of outdoor advertising, he is convinced of the paramount importance of positive leadership. He goes beyond business acumen with his strong focus on people.
Drawing on creativity to solve issues is just the beginning. He brings those solutions to life with a strong will for implementation, clear focus and an attitude of perseverance. This is exactly why the Formies approach is a perfect fit centering around resilience, focus and action orientation.
The Formies program raised Gerald’s awareness of blind spots he had in his inner team leadership. This new level of consciousness enables him to consistently focus on the essentials in a wide variety of leadership situations, be it as a father or a manager.
Gina Eitelbös (Certified Psycho-Social Counsellor)
Certified Formies Coach
Pioneering – uplifting – energizing
“What lies before us and what lies behind us is nothing compared to what lies within us.” Thoreau’s words reflect very well Gina’s mindset. She is convinced that there is a shiny kaleidoscope dormant in every person. “Make your kaleidoscope shine” is the mission of her company and the essence of her daily activities.
Gina is fully dedicated to her clients. She loves to deeply listen to them and compassionately encouraging them to see what she sees: their true essence. This is Gina’s special talent, a gift that brought many of her clients to the next level.
Gina’s extensive self-exploration journey started in 2019: after more than 15 years of experience in executive career development at a renowned business school, she dedicated three years to Viktor Frankl’s theory of meaning and is fully committed to counselling people in fundamental change processes. In 2023, she followed-up with the master class of the Formies Approach, adding new and complementary perspectives to her inner journey.
She has a special love for children, whose development she stimulates with the Formies Theatre, the Formies Kids Camps and workshops at schools. She also counsels parents, teachers and teenagers for more balanced, and self-aware children.
Sibylle Gustke
Certified Formies Coach
Autonomous – direct – humorous
Sibylle is a remarkable self-made woman who has taken full responsibility for her life even in the most turbulent phases. Her determination and clarity led her early on to stand up not only for herself, but also for others.
In different leadership roles, successfully heading small and large teams, she discovered her true calling: to ensure more justice and equal opportunities in the workplace. She is passionate about helping people find their authentic selves and unleash their true strengths.
During her career, Sibylle began a deeper search for fulfillment. To explore the roots of conflict in the workplace, she became a mediator and trainer in nonviolent communication. Digging deeper, she came across the Formies approach which led her on a journey to the issues in her own inner team, the true sources of conflict.
With contagious energy and joy, she removed her inner mental and emotional barriers and now inspires others to get out of their comfort zone. Sibylle combines this new ease with her profound leadership knowledge and many years of professional experience to support people in going beyond their limits.
Tatjana Oppitz
Certified Formies Coach
Courage for change
Change is pivotal to progress with each individual’s responsibility to go for it. That’s Tatjana’s strong belief, and she is living it. After a successful career in the corporate world in Austria and abroad, she moved on to a leadership position in academia successfully implementing digital transformation of a huge university. She thrives on leaving her comfort zone exploring new worlds. As the child of diplomats, Tatjana grew up with versatility and open-mindedness in an international environment. Tatjana fills up her batteries in nature she loves to immerse herself, with all her senses. She is fond of exercising, indoor and outdoor, as physical movement means vitality to her.
Aiming at a self-determined life, Tatjana ventured out to explore her inner world with the Formies and is happy to share her diverse experiences and her own transformation process with others. Her credos: the harmonious combination of intellect, feelings and physicality, paired with clarity, defines being human; growing means leaving one’s comfort zone and embracing the unknown. Tatjana wants to support others to leave their comfort zone, change perspectives, and discover the unknown inside themselves with ease, grace and joy.
Dr. Sanja (Sanya) Selak (PhD)
Certified Formies Coach
Explorative – Resilient – Innovative
As a very curious, creative, and independent person, Sanja enjoys connecting people, ideas, and information which often leads her to create something entirely new. This also means that she learned to follow her own ‘compass’ for direction overcoming many struggles and rejections.
Her thirst for knowledge and creative self-expression had led her to writing, composing music, studying science and medicine, making scientific discoveries, and becoming a biotech entrepreneur. After her company’s acquisition by big pharma, Sanja also experienced the life of an executive in the pharmaceutical industry.
Sanja had experienced a civil war and emigration to a foreign country. Her professional and private journey had also led her on an important path towards self-discovery. Using the Formies approach and her rich life experience, Sanja applies in practice what she learned to unleash creativity, facilitate scientific innovation, coach, and inspire others on the way to realizing their full potential.
If you are a student, an artist, a scientist, a team leader, an entrepreneur, or an immigrant facing challenges in a new country, Sanja is very happy to support you on your own journey towards reaching a new level of inspiration, creativity, and effectiveness.
Isabel Sandel (M.Sc.; B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
Isabel is ‘imaginative, idealistic, inspiring’. Her mission is to work with people, strengthening and supporting their well-being and experiencing meaningfulness together. With a B.A. in Health Promotion and M.Sc. in Communication and Industrial Psychology she often had to create demand for her talents. As an open and curious individual, Isabel kept on learning obtaining additional qualifications such as ‘Specialist for Animal Assisted Therapy, Counseling & Pedagogy’.
In the last 10 years Isabel worked mainly in a health psychology – social therapy context, with the purpose of “going on a treasure hunt with people instead of searching for mistakes; and turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones”. She particularly enjoys doing this with students as a lecturer in the Business Psychology program at Aalen University.
As a Certified Formies Coach Isabel supports her coachees in regaining their inherent power, leveraging their resources, (re-)connecting with their essence and thereby helping them to lead a life that fits their talents. Her coachees highly appreciate Isabel as an authentic, empathetic person encouraging them to BE themselves.
Angelika Moniak (B.A.)
Certified Formies Coach
‘Driven to drive’ – that’s what Angelika stands for. She has a gift to envision the full potential – in individuals and in companies. And she has the talent of encouraging others to go beyond what they thought was possible.
Her strong inner drive coupled with persistence is fueled by her own history. She spent her early childhood in Siberia and experienced a culture shock in rural Southern Germany where women still followed rather traditional roles. She experienced how it felt to be judged and stereotyped against: as a bi-cultural individual, as a woman, as an academic….
Where others succumbed to the status quo, Angelika went beyond the limitations brought by her environment and created her own world. She took tough decisions following her inner call and went for a training as a dressmaker before starting a job in international business directly after her graduation. Designing and sewing her own cloths was a dream she realized. The price was rejection by others and being labeled as ‘strange’. That motivated Angelika even further to find out more about herself and to clean-up her thoughts and feelings. This is what she helps others to do as a Certified Formies Coach.
At work, she is acknowledged a gifted lateral leader driving the transformation for alignment between purpose, culture, structure and strategy. Her colleagues stand in line to get her advice and encouragement.
Her motto: never give up and face your fears! Only then will you excel.
Expanding the network
Open Call to connect with individuals, teams or organizations who are interested in
- doing research about leveraging consciousness in leadership (e.g. regarding consciousness maturity stages)
- promoting the Formies approach on inner clarity and leveraging consciousness in your region or country: you are in charge of local initiatives such as translation of education resources into local languages, customization of educational programs, pilot projects at universities or schools.
