The core of The Joy Academy is balance, freedom and joy.
Our entire portfolio of offerings is based on these qualities that are not only values but overarching principles of life.
These principles of life are our common base for acting.
Who are we? Conscious individuals from all walks of life who team up to unleash the power of consciousness in a focused and joyful way.
We are thrilled by our own inner development and love to share our experience based on the Inner Team Approach with others:
For individuals who can lead a balanced life they fully enJOY!
Active Members of the Joy Academy
Our active members are Certified Formies Coaches or Inner Leadership Practitioners. They are experts in inner team development both within and outside the Joy Academy. Some of us hold additional roles to help our shared purpose flourish.
Katrin Köster
Dr. Adrian Kreppel
Britta Baumeister
Mark Baumgärtner
Daniel Börnert
Gina Eitelbös
Sylwia Falandysz
Dr. Thomas Funke
Sibylle Gustke
Nina Kleiber
Michael Raum
Tim Raum
Jana Reich
Florian Reich
Natalie Rodriguez
Stefanie Rodriguez Maier
Carsten Scholian
Isabelle Schweizer
Tanja Siegmund
Andrea Stossfellner
Andrea Walz
Sabine Wanger
Julia Weiß
Alumni
Graduates of our Certified Formies Coach program who do not practice inner team development in the context of our offerings:
Corinne Besancon
Dr. Sabine Egger
Zebib Ghile †
Astrid Gradischnig
Petra Krestan-Schön
Angelika Moniak
Tatjana Oppitz
Gerald Schlosser
Dr. Sanja Selak
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.
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.
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.
Daniel Börnert
Organizational Balancer & Certified Formies Coach
Daniel works with what is at the core of organizations: identity, attitude, and humanity. He is deeply committed to helping companies become more authentic—beyond buzzwords, superficial logic, and purely methodological thinking.
As a consultant and coach, he combines courage, appreciation, and the ability to get things done. With his keen intuition, he acts as a kind of essence finder of purpose, values, strengths, and brands.
He thrives on trust, and celebrates the moments when leaders and their organizations become again authentic, human and sustainable.
Gina Eitelbös
Certified Formies Coach
“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.
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.
Sylwia Falandysz
Certified Formies Coach
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.
Her motto: “Life can be easy!”
Sibylle Gustke
Certified Formies Coach
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.
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.
Nina Kleiber
Certified Formies Coach
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.
Michael Raum
Certified Formies Coach
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.
Florian Reich
Community Expansion Responsible, Certified Formies Coach
Florian is a warm-hearted person who welcomes others with open arms, reaches out to them, and knows how to touch their hearts.
From soul to soul, he sets pure energy in motion and helps others connect with themselves. He opens hearts with his gift for telling toucing stories of (self-)development in vivid language, stories that revolve around the inner radiance of the diamond that resides within every person.
Florian loves dynamism and movement. He is passionate about playing basketball and tennis. He equally loves inner movement, be it yoga practice or listening to melodies that allow him to revel in the diversity of his emotional facets.
He feels very much at home in the MENA region with its tradition of storytelling and enjoys the diversity of cultures, which he perceives as a true enrichment.
Florian loves the exhilarating feeling of freedom, adventure, the sun, the sea, and ease of life.
Natalie Rodriguez
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.’
Stefanie Rodriguez-Maier
Certified Formies Coach
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.
Carsten Scholian
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!
Isabelle Schweizer
School Formies Responsible, Certified Formies Coach
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (The Little Prince).
My work begins where people feel seen. Not only in terms of performance or behavior, but with an open heart for what lies behind a person, their feelings, their experiences, their history.
Early on, I wondered how people function internally and why they act the way they do. My own experiences at school showed me how vulnerable young people can be when they feel different or don’t fit into existing systems. At the same time, I developed a desire to start right there: to create ‘different is beautiful’ spaces.
I studied Waldorf education with a focus on classroom teaching and a master’s degree specializing in inclusive education. Today, I work at a special education center in Southwest Germany with a focus on inclusive learning with focus on emotional and social development.
I believe that every individual can grow when they feel safe, understood, and accepted. And that true learning begins when we see not only with our eyes, but with our hearts. I practice this every day in the classroom and in my work with parents as a Certified Formies Coach.
Tanja Siegmund
Organizational Balancer & Certified Formies Coach
For 20 years, Tanja has been working with decision-makers in medium-sized companies and corporations when it comes to presence, confidence, and effectiveness in complex situations or strategic decisions. Her focus is on communication and relationship dynamics.
She accompanies company leaders in moments that shape their and the organization’s future. She senses imbalances and makes the invisible visible. Her focus is on responsible leadership, solutions, and how to bring them into life.
Tanja goes deep. She stays when others leave without losing her amazing sense of humour.
Julia Weiss
Certified Formies Coach, Tandem-Partner
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe has accompanied me for a long time. His words have taken on a very personal meaning for me: knowledge only truly becomes valuable once it is felt and lived.
This is exactly the space I work in today: between understanding and implementation, between inner clarity and lived experience. I am interested in what moves beneath the surface: inner motivations, subtle dynamics, and hidden potential. Development is rarely linear. It unfolds in the in‑between – in pausing, in honest questioning, and in consciously moving forward.
My academic background (M.Sc.; M.A.; B.A.), along with my training in yoga, Ayurveda coaching, and as a certified Formies Coach, reflects this integration: a solid foundation of knowledge paired with holistic perspectives and lived practice. I bring together analytical clarity and intuition, structure and creativity, depth and real‑world impact.
