Transformational Presence Global Leaders

Elina Akola, ACC, CTPC

Teacher, coach, and speaker Elina Akola says she found Transformational Presence by following her intuition. In Elina’s words:

When I started my first training with Alan in 2018, I did not foresee what a life-changing journey this would be for me! Now I am leading some of the Transformational Presence courses in Finnish.

Intuition has always been a strong tool for me as a coach. As a professional of adult education, I have been teaching people to help themselves for years. Transformational Presence gave me tools to help people find answers to their questions about life, pathways through their challenges, and new direction and clear next steps with opportunities. This skill is nowadays more valuable than ever before because of insecurity in ever-changing situations and the vast amounts of information coming towards us every day.

To get access into that inner knowledge, one has to first learn how to be present. Intuition, finding solutions, and a sense of knowing is not just an “inner game.” It starts from listening deeply to people, situations, surroundings, and then to oneself. It’s all about different perspectives, things, situations, and relationships between different particles of emerging life. Transformational Presence gives us the keys that open the doors into that vast source of information.

My ongoing journey of self-discovery and inspiration with Transformational Presence continues to bring deep change in how I show up to my life and work. As a quick-minded person I am nowadays more present. I am more in a mood of listening first and acting after. I work more wisely. I have more resources for my own wellbeing and my loved ones.

Elina holds two Masters degrees: Master of Arts and Master of Education.

Languages: Finnish, English
Website: Sophiasign
LinkedIn: Elina Akola

Jo Boniszewski, CTPC

Jo Boniszewski has worked closely with Alan Seale since 2013. Transformational Presence has become the foundational “backbone” of her approach to life and work. She is currently a program leader for the Transformational Presence signature programs, both open-enrollment and in-company forms.

An experienced transformational leadership coach and facilitator, Jo has been a trainer in the field of leadership and personal development for 15 years. She enables those with whom she works to get to the heart of the matter quickly and expand awareness, resulting in significant and sustainable growth.

Prior to becoming a coach, Jo spent 15 years in the corporate world. She quite naturally bridges the perceived gaps between the rational intellect and intuitive knowing, between task orientation and people orientation. As a result, the individuals and teams with whom she works learn to thrive and lead with ease and impact, even in turbulent times.

Jo is British and has lived in The Netherlands with her husband and three children, for 25 years. She works with openness, trust, respect, focus, challenge, creativity and fun.

Languages: English, Dutch
Website: Barefoot Training

Katarina Cars, PCC, CTPC

In 2012, Katarina took the major decision to leave her corporate career in Human Resources and start her own business. In that same year, she met Alan Seale for the first time at the International Coach Federation (ICF) Global Conference in London. Alan was leading a workshop for about 500 people in the plenary hall, and Katarina was touched by the energy, the deep messages, and the knowledge and experience she gained through Alan in his workshop.

Returning home from London and busy with building her new company, Cars Consulting Group, Katarina also continued reading Alan’s books, subscribed to his newsletter, and immersed herself in his work as best she could. When Alan came to Sweden to teach in 2017, her true journey of coaching and training with him started in earnest.

Katarina’s first career dream was to become a classical singer. Although her career took a different path, music and singing are both a vital part of her and her family’s life. She met her husband Fredrik through music in 1989, and their three children are all into music in different ways.

Katarina has a degree in Human Resources from the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She has always been very curious about what we as humans bring to the world, and how our relationships to one another matter. During her corporate career, she worked globally in the life-sciences and telecom industries in association with Pharmacia Biotech, Amersham, General Electric Healthcare, and Telenor.

Cars Consulting Group supports teams in their development as well as individuals in their personal growth. When working with management teams, her primary focus is on helping teams build greater trust and learn deeper ways of listening. She invites the kind of dialogue that brings the topics that matter most to the surface. Katarina designs leadership programs for companies as well as personal development programs for anyone who is curious to learn, grow, and develop themselves to their greatest potential.

Katarina was born in Uppsala and still makes that city her home. At the same time, she also has a favorite place on Utö, an island in the Stockholm archipelago. For her, Utö is her “true home.” There, she is close to the sea, the forest, and the silence. It is here that she feels closest to Transformational Presence. She and her colleagues therefore welcome clients and customers to spend time on the island where they can relax in the nature and beauty of their surroundings and do some great work together!

Languages: Swedish, English
Websites: Courageous Leadership and Cars Consulting
LinkedIn: Katarina Cars

Marta Czapla-Bystrowska, PCC, CTPC

Marta is one of the co-founders of the Transformational Presence Institute in Poland along with Joanna Maria Zawada and Patryk Lange. She also facilitates the Polish-language Transformational Presence Coaching Circle.

Marta first encountered Transformational Presence in February 2019 when she met Joanna Maria Zawada in her coaching post-graduate studies. Marta describes that moment: “During the demo session led by Joanna with the Three Intelligences, I experienced a great breaking opening. My head didn’t understand what was happening, yet my heart and body knew that something important was unfolding for me.” In October of that year, she joined the TPLC in Poland, and a month later, she joined the Manifestation Wheel workshop with Alan.

In Marta’s words, “To follow the path in the spirit of Transformational Presence is for me to integrate the many parts of my life—corporate, based on structure and systems, and the deeper, more intuitive parts of me that are rooted in my heart and soul. I have discovered the gift of being true to myself. This allows me and my clients to liberate the voice of wisdom. It continues to be a challenging and courageous yet beautiful journey. As my intuitive wisdom and rational mind increasingly come into coherence, my abilities to respond to whatever is happening grow stronger.”

Prior to becoming a coach, Marta spent 16 years in the corporate world. For 13 of those years, she managed customer-facing teams. Companies she served include RR Donnelley Europe, A.T. Kearney, Procter & Gamble, and SMS Demag AG in Germany, the UK, and Poland. Marta also developed a social economy business creating workplaces for Down Syndrome individuals. She describes that experience as “a dance of focusing on structures, targets and creating true connections with people.”

In 2020, Marta experienced what she describes as “an enlightening connection with my heart voice.” That experience led her to create a program and community for female entrepreneurs called “Masterheart: Becoming True Self”—coming back to our genuine power and back to our home.

Languages: Polish, English, German
Website: Marta Czapla-Bystrowska
LinkedIn: Marta Czapla-Bystrowska

Marie Dancourt-Cavanagh, EMCC Senior Practitioner, CTPC

When Marie Dancourt-Cavanagh discovered Alan Seale’s Transformational Presence work in 2018, it was a key turning point to switch from transactional to transformational coaching and to uncover the powerful impact of a potential-based approach. The Transformational Presence approach truly does reconcile the rational mind with intuitive wisdom.

Marie is an experienced transformational systemic leadership coach, trainer, and facilitator, supporting executives, teams, and leaders in unleashing their leadership potential and making a difference where it matters. She is passionate about meaningful and sustainable change, using a combination of creative approaches as well as systemic and collective intelligence tools, all supported by the foundation of Transformational Presence.

Among Marie’s specialties are leadership development and change management, high-performing teams, cross-cultural communication, resilience and stress management, talent and strengths development, career and life transitions, and women in leadership.

Marie has a background in international affairs in the public sector at operational, strategic and senior management levels. With almost 25 years of business experience and 10 years as the founder of OpeningWays coaching and consulting group, she has built extensive experience over a range of industry and economic sectors that help her bring an out-of-the-box perspective to those she serves.

Marie brings a natural enthusiasm, strong strategic focus, integrity, creativity, and both a learning and operational mindset to her work. She is deeply committed to humanistic values and building a more respectful, fair, and inclusive world.

Languages: French, English, German
Website: Opening Ways (under construction)

Sander van Eekelen, CTPC

Sander van Eekelen  has worked closely with Alan Seale and the Center for Transformational Presence since 2012. He is currently a program leader for the various Transformational Presence programs, both open-enrollment and in-company forms.

Sander thrives on enabling and witnessing growth in individual and leadership development. His own continuous learning and developmental process lies at the core of his life and work. In describing what this work is for him, Sander says, “I’m inspired to learn and teach; it’s a reciprocal, never-ending dance. To playfully enable people to become the fullest version of themselves is my ultimate goal in life.”

Sander is an experienced transformational leadership coach and facilitator, founder of Academy of Life and co-founder of ShiftsHappen. He is also a Certified Transformational Presence Coach. He specializes in individual and organizational wholeness and self-organizing systems. He creates environments in which people feel safe and supported to explore their greatest potential—environments where they can develop the courage to step through self-created and self-imposed barriers. He has a way of both respectfully inviting and compassionately challenging people to go take their next big steps in deep exploration, making significant shifts possible.

With a background in social psychology as well as many years of experience both in management and in the field of Human Resource Management, Sander speaks the business-language and knows by experience the issues and situations executives are faced with on a daily basis.

Languages: Dutch, English
Websites: Shifts Happen and the Academy of Life

Patryk Lange, PCC, CTPC

Patryk Lange and Joanna Maria Zawada (see profile below) are the founders of the Transformational Presence Institute in Poland. Patryk’s first encounter with Transformational Presence was in 2014, thanks to Joanna, who was the first to introduce this work in Poland.

Patryk describes that first experience:

Joanna presented the “Four Levels of Engagement” model at a three-hour meeting for coaches. From the first moments of this meeting, I sensed a different and interesting quality, which led me to dive deep into Transformational Presence.”

A year later, Alan came to Poland to lead the Transformational Presence Leadership and Coach Training (TPLC). I joined the course at Joanna’s invitation, and from that moment, my adventure with Transformational Presence had begun.

I have always felt that the material world has its roots in thought and mind. The more I am aware of what I am in the depths of my Mind, the more I can live smarter and, above all, live more peacefully and in harmony with Life. Since 2008, when Buddhism became my main path of development, I have been exploring and developing this way of thinking about functioning in the World. I have been practicing continuously since then, and I am increasingly impressed by the truthfulness and universality of the teachings, the basis of which was discovered more than 2500 years ago.

Coming from my Buddhist studies, I take great delight in the “noble simplicity” of Transformational Presence. I continue my own development in this area and now share the transformative tools and approaches that I have been learning from Alan with others. The Transformational Presence approach has become a wonderful way to integrate the subtle and spiritual layers of reality with the material and the concrete. For me, Transformational Presence is a bridge between deep presence and wise action.

In the professional realm, I serve as an executive coach primarily for managers working in engineering companies. I also teach coaching and mindfulness. I support my clients to boldly explore their inner worlds, to get to know themselves better in this way, to meet what is difficult, and to discover what is beautiful and supportive. The courage to be myself and the willingness to learn the truth about myself are the key motivations of my work. I believe that this results in a sincere partnership relationship with Life.

Languages: Polish, English
Websites: The Transformational Presence Institute (Poland) and Patryk Lange
LinkedIn: Patryk Lange

Paolo Morley-Fletcher, PCC, CTPC

Strategist, coach, and seeker Paolo Morley-Fletcher says that meeting Alan in 2017 in the Netherlands “was both a liberating and empowering milestone in my life and a calling to embrace and serve the power of Transformational Presence.”

As both a strategy consultant and executive coach, Paolo has served leaders and organizations globally around Strategy, Culture, and Leadership transformation for over 20 years. He believes that today’s world demands a shift in leadership consciousness and organizational culture—a shift wherein leaders focus inward and engage in “deep work” to serve and illuminate the world inside-out.

Paolo is the Founder and Director of AtmanWay, an independent boutique consulting practice blending Strategy, Wisdom and Action to facilitate personal, organizational, and systemic growth and change. He is a Global Leader for The Katzenbach Center, PwC’s think-tank on culture and leadership, a Senior Executive Advisor of STRATEGY& (formerly Booz & Company), and a leadership consultant and partner of Oxford Leadership.

Based with his family in Italy and the UK, Paolo is active as a speaker, coach, and consultant, serving clients across Europe in English, French, and Italian.

Paolo’s background studies and qualifications include an ongoing PhD in Wisdom studies with the Chartres Academy – Ubiquity Wisdom School, an MS degree in Economics, and coaching certifications from the International Coach Federation (PCC),  Coach Training Institute (CPCC), The Leadership Circle (LCPC), and the Center for Transformational Presence (CTPC). Paolo is also a certified yoga teacher.

Languages: English, French, Italian
Website: AtmanWay
LinkedIn: Paolo Morley-Fletcher

Libbey Paul, CTPC

A long-time seeker, Libbey Paul has known Alan Seale’s work since 2002. His teachings have always resonated deeply with her belief in the fundamental loving nature of the universe. More recently, she fully stepped into studying with Alan when she began her third act as Transformational Presence coach, facilitator, and leader. She has found her home in Transformational Presence, and it informs everything she does: from coaching to parenting, facilitating to community building.

Libbey brings to these roles skills and wisdom won from her first two acts. She worked for seventeen years in corporate product management and client service with Procter & Gamble and Nielsen. She spent the next fourteen years raising a family and focusing on her local village through small-business consulting and community service. She carries this broad perspective into her coaching practice, holding a spacious growth container for clients seeking to find meaning, transformation, and integration across their spiritual, family, work, and community selves.

Libbey’s clients experience big shifts and real healing. She is warm, heart-centered, open, curious, creative, quick-witted, energizing, and wise. Her zest for life and commitment to her own growth make her an ideal partner for her clients’ transformational journeys.

Libbey is a lifelong learner. In addition to being a certified Transformational Presence Coach, she holds a master’s in business administration and continues to cultivate expertise in facilitation, somatics, working with women, advancing racial justice, and helping clients to manage anxiety and heal trauma. She lives with her husband outside of Chicago in the United States. She loves building community, both locally and with fellow seekers around the world.

Languages: English
LinkedIn: Libbey Paul

Vincent Sark, CTPC

Since 2015, Vincent Sark has fully dedicated his professional life to being a change leader with Transformational Presence as the solid foundation. He is committed to bringing insights and sustainable change in a light and playful manner.

Vincent was a leader in the high-end market of full custom super yachts for 15 years. There he learned to look for opportunities and deliver the highest quality possible in every aspect of the job. In 2018, he decided to shift full-time into working as a coach and a change leader based on the work of Transformational Presence. He has worked with local Dutch government agencies and commercial organisations, and has been part of the Leader Team for several international Transformational Presence events.

In his words, “I love to be in service to help others discover their options in both personal and professional life.”

Languages: Dutch, English
Website: Transformational Playground

Caroline Veerman, CTPC

Caroline Veerman took her first steps with Transformational Presence in 2016, and has worked closely with Alan and this community ever since. She is an experienced Transformational Presence trainer, coach, and manager. Caroline has over 20 years of experience combining innovative and strategic leadership with human development. She has a unique understanding of individual and team behavior, knows how to challenge their viewpoints respectfully and open awareness to new possibilities using their natural talents. Leading from her authenticity and core values, Caroline is a role model and catalyst to help people and teams fulfill their highest potential. She uses her key strengths—her ability to lift people up, clarity, intuition, empathy, and action—to harness vital resources and achieve transformational results.

Caroline’s approach to life is rooted in the awareness that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience. Transformational Presence is the foundation of her work, offering practical tools, approaches, formats, and language to bridge experience and knowledge of the inner world with the challenges of daily life and work. She is particularly dedicated to supporting teams and organizations in working from the inside out, knowing that the quality of what can be achieved will be directly related to the awareness of the people within the system.

Languages: Dutch, English, German
Website: Ferja

Joanna Maria Zawada, MCC, CTPC

The most profound discovery in the history of science is that the world is fundamentally inseparable and both material world and consciousness are parts of a single unbroken totality of movement.
—David Bohm, physicist

Joanna Maria Zawada and Patryk Lange (see profile above) are the founders of the Transformational Presence Institute in Poland. Joanna first met Alan Seale and the Transformational Presence approach when he spoke at the ICF Global Conference in London in 2012. In Joanna’s words:

Meeting Alan was the beginning of my personal journey of transformation. “Life as energy in motion” has always been present in my system, and recognizing that in Alan’s work felt like coming back home again. I’ve been following a much more conscious path since then.

With time, I have learned that Transformational Presence is not just a way of leading and coaching—it’s a way of living. The more aligned I become with its principles, the more true I become to myself, and what I bring to my clients and to the world around me becomes more powerful.

I’m an engineer by training and a coach by calling and choice. Ten years of corporate life brought me closer to people and to the beauty of relationship dynamics. Supported by wise and visionary leaders, I dared to leave the safe and friendly corporate life I had built to follow what I had always felt as my passion—discovering potential of self and others.

Since 2006, accompanied by magnificent clients, leaders, and mentors, I have deepened, explored, and opened up to potential and manifestation in my life and work. I’m amazed by how the World unfolds its wisdom through the challenges and invitations we face, and how that wisdom helps us discover the best way forward. Day by day, I am astonished by the ways that diverse areas of knowledge, from psychology to the economy, and from ancient wisdom to quantum physics, integrate and overlap in the miracle of life.  

Since 2015, I have been growing and nurturing the Transformational Presence community in Poland, first with the great help of Alan and Gabriella van Rooij, and now with a Polish team of transformational disciples. I deliver the Transformational Presence programs in Poland as well as broaden and deepen the web of connections between people who are attracted to this approach. Equally important, I let the Transformational Presence way of living inspire leaders in organizations.

In Coachways, the company that I co-lead in Poland, we create development programs and processes that deepen awareness through presence, courage, trust, and dialogue. Our work allows leaders to be in a greater sense of their potential and human touch. I feel moved and enriched as I see individuals and teams shift old patterns and ways of showing up.

Is it an easy path to follow? Certainly not. It is not a quick win or a pill for success. However, it is a journey that enables understanding so that we can find our way through what is difficult and step into potential. As Joseph Campbell said about the Hero’s Journey, “In the cave you fear to enter, you find the treasure you seek.” I believe that the journey reveals whoever the Hero is for you. Welcome to the journey.

Languages: Polish, English
Website: Coachways