About
The Fraendi ecosystem is a dedicated group of experienced leaders committed to the art of transformation.
Jackie Thoms
FOUNDER, CEO
Rainer von Leoprechting
FOUNDER, BOARD MEMBER
Hema Patel
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
John Watters
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Sepp Kirchengast
Story Matcher Lead
Chris Chapman
EDGEWALKER, SYSTEMS WHISPERER
Daniela Volkert
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Carissa Bub
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Dina Goncharova
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Cecil Schmitt
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Hendrik Berberich
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Bernadette Wesley
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Rainer von Leoprechting
FOUNDER, BOARDMEMBER
Rainer is holding all the big pictures. He is a management consultant by heart and soul and gets right into what immediately brings teams and organisations forward. He holds degrees in banking and economy and built the inhouse consulting service in the European Commission, where he introduced a range of self-management, peer-learning and participatory leadership practices. He lives the regenerative life in the Obenaus Community he founded in Styria, Austria.
John Watters
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
John creates the conditions to release untapped human potential working at the interfaces between the individual, team and the wider system. He focuses on the smallest intervention possible to stimulate the system’s natural capacity to adapt and thrive. John also loves to lead retreats. Clients highlight John’s qualities of courage, rigour, intuition and warm-heartedness. He has two Master’s degrees and his work and consulting experience spans almost every type and size of organisation in the UK and internationally.
Jackie Thoms
FOUNDER, CEO
Jackie stewards Fraendi with clarity and groundedness. She is a recommended international executive coach and facilitator, holding masters degrees in psychology and marketing. She’s finding and practicing breakthrough methods and technologies to develop and transform how we think and how we live and work. She has worked with high-level clients, facilitated internationally reknowned conferences and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Jeroen Vermeer
LEARNING & FINANCE LEAD
Jeroen helps us become set up for desirable futures by digging deep into Fraendi’s finances & legals to cocreate a cutting edge regenerative company. He co-owned different shipping companies as a director and holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Psychosynthesis. He’s a learner through and through and as such leads the Fraendi learning circle. He brings a strong systemic focus to coaching and consulting and the knowledge that all systems are self-organizing.
kaa Faensen
COMMUNICATIONS LEAD
kaa is leading the co-creation and communication of the Fraendi brand. She studied linguistics and social therapy and is certified in integrative coaching and meta-consulting. She has lead different social institutions before she became an expert in the field of participatory leadership consulting and visual facilitation. Her focus is on enabling the perception of the complexity of what is actually going on and from there find developmental pathways to embark on collaboratively.
Jonathan Serjeant
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LEAD
Jonathan leads the development of Fraendi partnerships with individuals and organisations. He thrives on walking alongside people in a complex world to help them see themselves, be seen, and make the connections to make a difference to peoples lives. Throughout his professional life he became a dedicated and sought-after senior executive in the field of health and technology, having founded, led and stewarded multiple organizations to improve peoples health.
Hema Patel
ASSISTANT
Hema supports us in the management of workflows and smoothing processes, monitoring and stewarding the assessments workflows. She holds an LLB Law degree and worked as a personal assistant to the Managing Director at International Fiscal Services in London before she founded her own business as a highly recommended virtual assistant. She knows all the tools, all the rules and is a spreadsheet wizard. One day we’re going to steal her full time.
Dina Goncharova
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Dina is visionary, she is holding a grand possibility for the world and for her clients. She enables personal and organizational transformation through facilitation, design, and coaching. She is holding a master’s degree in diplomacy. Dina is a practitioner of various disciplines from Systemic work to somatic coaching. She is committed to address complex dynamics in people and relationships with grounding and deep humanity. She helps clients to rekindle their purposeful action including deep wisdom of the body through playful facilitation approach, connectedness, and somatic coaching. Dina is a traveler, a reader, she loves to walk in nature, a good swim and a deep conversation.
Daniela Volkert
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Daniela dances with people to let them shine. She is deep into our developmental assessment practice, loving the depth of the theory and profound possibilities lying in it. She holds a degree in communications psychology and holistic systemic business coaching. Over the last ten years she worked in organizational communications and coordinated large strategic visualization projects for well-known clients all over the world. She’s a certified NIA teacher and enables us to move. She is also an antenna for coherence.
Chris Chapman
EDGEWALKER, SYSTEMS WHISPERER
Chris is a systems whisperer, working with complex systems. He listens deeply and facilitates to find ways to better health and greater sustainability. He has worked with most government departments in Ireland, particularly on large scale initiatives that cut across silos. Chris holds a Masters Degree in Change Agent Skills and Strategies. The course focused on the interfaces between personal, group and organisational change – where to Chris has added societal change as well.
Hendrik Berberich
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Hendrik is our multitool to create great experiences in our learning spaces. He brings lightness and a smile while being committed and professional. He is holding a degree in Business Administration and worked with and for AIESEC in different countries and various fields. He is an experienced host, facilitator and founder of the “Inner World Tribe” Community of Practice. He is continuously learning and exploring his own edges, all with an open heart & open mind.
Alexandra Robinson
ASSOCIATE PARTNER – LEADERSHIP PROFILES LEAD
Alexandra is committed to make space for perceptivity whilst staying cognitively rigorous. Since her degree in Biology, Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation at Imperial College London she facilitates the perception of complex systems culturally and societally. At Fraendi she discovered Adult Development to be the missing piece to overcome the binary discourse of “listen to science or inner worlds” it’s both and it is relevant who talks and who asks the questions – for systems, souls and society.
Emily Stewart
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
Emily brings her experiences from a variety of organisational and cultural contexts, and with it a compassion for the things that matter, and the things that don’t. She holds a degree from Oxford University in Psychology and Philosophy, and a background in social enterprise, systems thinking, facilitation, responsible leadership, process design and research. She is committed to building collective capacities that meet the need for transformation across systems, with applied experience in food and agroecology, new economics, law and governance.
Stefanie Greca
CADRA Study
Sepp Kirchengast
Story Matcher Lead
Sepp loves to make connections – just like the Storymatcher, whose circle he leads. He contributes several decades of experience in IT and management. Having studied Communications Technology and being certified in project management and change management he has worked for international banking corporations. As trusted business consulting companion, he creates secure spaces, where fruitful liveliness thrives, connectedness grows and meaningful transformation flows.
Bernadette Wesley
Associate Partner
Bernadette brings to Fraendi over 15 years of experience coaching and consulting leaders. In supporting organisations, she draws upon her experience in various leadership roles, including Senior Marketing Analyst at a Fortune 500 corporation, CEO of an international import business, and Founder and Director of a non-profit education center. Bernadette is driven by a burning desire to assist in the transformation of the old organizational systems that no longer work and to support leaders and teams in becoming more human-centric, self-sustaining and to thrive in this time of great change. By bridging Sociocracy (power-with structures) and conscious self-leadership (power-within), she helps teams co-create together in ways that are healthy, empowered, and productive.
Cecil Schmitt
Associate Partner
Cécil catalyzes the change that is needed now in organizations and leadership practices. He loves to connect to individuals and teams, in order to be a leverage through which they feel comfortable and navigate in the midst of uncertainty. Cecil is passionate about how Adult Development can create a context to bridge inner to outer worlds perspectives on what can be development and performance. Cécil is a professional certified coach and holds a Master’s Degree in quality and organizations development. He is inspired by David Lynch’s cinematographic work, and he integrates this whole background in what he wants to be a aesthetic, poetic and meaningful way to live, by connecting and being an element of thriving, healing and positivity to himself and others.
Carissa Bu
Associate Partner
Carissa is a catalyst and connector. She works closely and compassionately with visionary leaders and their teams to create the conditions for personal transformation, brilliant collaboration, and real-world change. Her 20 years global experience as systemic coach and facilitator is built on a reputation for quickly getting to the essence of complex relationship challenges and engendering a culture of trust and true partnership. She is a professional certified coach, holds a masters degree in developmental psychoanalytical psychology and is a former broadcast journalist.
