Virginie Kleinclaus
Host and coach
Virginie spent twenty-five years working inside some of the world’s best-known multinational organisations, leading teams in marketing, branding and licensing.
She was successful at it.
But the part of the work that mattered most to her was never the title, the campaign or the commercial result. It was watching people become more fully themselves: discovering an ability they did not know they possessed, finding confidence in their own judgement and creating work they genuinely cared about.
Eventually, Virginie realised that this was not simply the part of her job she enjoyed.
It was the work she wanted to do.
So she left corporate life and began a different kind of education. She immersed herself in questions of psychology, human development and what makes a life feel genuinely one’s own. She trained as an executive coach and began what she describes as the process of remembering who she was before the world told her who to be.
This turns out to be rather more complicated than updating a LinkedIn profile.
Virginie now lives on Aegina and is an essential part of Laughing Heart.
She brings warmth, attentiveness and a quiet instinct for what people need. She is also one of those people who somehow makes things work without making a great performance of making things work.
This is particularly useful in a group containing Aaron and Manos.
She has three children, now grown into independent, joyful adults. She regards this with considerably more pride than anything that ever appeared on her corporate CV.
Her favourite word is metamorphosis.
It suits her.
And if she asks you to dance, say yes.
You have already spent enough of your life sitting in meetings.