Tell us about yourself and what it is that you do.
I am Irina Willems, a PCC ICF executive coach working with founders and senior leaders who operate under pressure, high expectations, and constant decision making. My work sits at the intersection of coaching, neuroscience informed behaviour change, and subconscious pattern transformation, with one clear focus: helping high performers build a mind and nervous system that can sustain big outcomes without burning out.
A core part of my practice is continuous education through programmes at leading universities worldwide focused on human behaviour, the brain, the nervous system, and applied neuroscience. I invest in this training to build a deep theoretical understanding of what happens inside the human system under stress, change, ambition, and responsibility. That depth allows me to apply practical tools in coaching that work with human biology instead of against it. The aim is to align ambition with the way the system functions, so performance becomes efficient, energy is not wasted, and results are achieved with clarity rather than chronic tension.
In practice, I work mostly through private sessions, and I also deliver workshops for leadership teams. My style is direct, structured, and deeply confidential. Results should be measurable, but the process should feel intelligent, humane, and discreet.
How did you initially find your passion and turn your passion into your career?
For 17 years, my career was rooted in finance: banking, financial analysis, and rigorous documentation processes. It was a world of high stakes accuracy, fast shifting conditions, and constant interaction across levels, from operational teams to senior stakeholders and external institutions. To move things forward, you had to communicate with precision, justify ideas, adapt instantly, stay creative under pressure, and sometimes understand people without them saying much at all.
What always fascinated me was this: why do some people thrive in that environment, while others, equally intelligent, struggle to perform, influence, or stay stable? Over time I realised the difference was rarely about technical skill. It was about human behaviour, emotional regulation, communication, and the inner patterns that shape decisions and performance. When the time came to shift my career direction, I chose to go where the real leverage is: how we relate to ourselves, to pressure, to people, to deadlines, and to the opportunities life puts in front of us.
Coaching became the perfect arena because it is practical. People do not need more theory. They need change that shows up on a Monday morning.
What is your mission?
My mission is to help leaders build an inner structure that matches the scale of their external ambition, and to make that process understandable, practical, and fast to implement.
The neuroscience based education I pursue gives me the ability to explain, in simple language, how the human system works: how the brain and nervous system respond to pressure, why certain patterns repeat, and why changes in one area of life affect performance, decisions, and relationships in another. In my executive mindset work, understanding becomes a catalyst. When leaders can see the internal mechanism step by step, they adopt tools more easily because they are no longer forcing change blindly.
My approach focuses on inner resilience and inner clarity, not as abstract ideas, but as trainable capacities grounded in how the brain and nervous system function. When a leader understands the “why” behind a tool and what it changes internally, implementation becomes quicker, more consistent, and more sustainable. For the same reason, I named my coaching method “Transformation through Thinking.”
How do you help founders and business leaders?
Founders and senior leaders often operate in multiple realities at once: vision, risk, team dynamics, stakeholder expectations, and personal identity. My work starts with clarity. We separate facts from noise, and fear from logic, then identify the patterns that repeat under pressure.
From there, we build a transformation plan across four connected layers:
1) Cognitive: decision frameworks, priorities, and clear thinking.
2) Emotional: regulation, resilience, triggers, and pressure tolerance.
3) Subconscious: identity patterns and automatic reactions that drive behaviour under stress.
4) Intuitive: the inner signal that often points to the right direction before it can be logically explained, and deserves a legitimate place alongside logic and emotional intelligence.
When the pattern shifts, performance no longer relies on willpower. Leaders decide and communicate more cleanly, lead with steadiness, and feel more confident, calmer, and more fulfilled as humans, not only as executives.
What value do you bring to organisations as a coach?
Organisations usually invest in strategy, structures, and skills. But the real bottleneck is often the human system. A leadership team can have the best strategy and still fail because of avoidance, emotional reactivity, unclear roles, or silent conflict.
I help organisations build leaders who can think clearly in complexity, regulate emotions in high stakes moments, and execute consistently. This improves decision quality, reduces internal friction, and upgrades leadership culture.
My approach respects the realities of senior environments: confidentiality, nuance, and political intelligence. Not every challenge can be discussed openly inside the company, and leaders often need a private space to process, rehearse, and recalibrate.
What are some interesting projects you have worked on?
Most of my work is done through private sessions, so confidentiality is nonnegotiable and I do not discuss individual cases.
One of the most interesting and atypical projects I recently completed was my own three-month program on Neuroadaptation in the Netherlands. I worked with a group of 10 people who had arrived in a new country and were adapting in real time to a new culture, language, and environment. The focus was on emotional and mental flexibility, self regulation under uncertainty, proactive thinking, and building inner resilience while creating a new life.
The feedback was rewarding. Participants reported that the tools for emotional regulation, clearer decision making, and resilience became part of how they operate day to day and continued to support them even after the program ended.
Why is neuroscience so important in creating sustainable behaviour change?
Because behaviour is not only a choice. It is often a trained response. Under stress, the brain defaults to what is familiar, not what is smart. This is why people can intellectually know what to do, and still not do it.
Neuroscience helps people understand the mechanics of change: how habits form, how stress narrows perception, why emotional triggers hijack logic, and how repetition builds new neural pathways. When a leader understands this, they stop blaming themselves and start training themselves.
Training is the key word. Sustainable change is not inspiration. It is conditioning.
Many people struggle with the implementation gap. How do you ensure your transformation frameworks actually stick and create lasting change?
I treat implementation as a design problem, not a motivation problem.
First, we reduce friction. The brain resists change when it feels costly, so we design micro actions that are small enough to be done even on a difficult day.
Second, we link new behaviour to a specific trigger. For example, when a leader notices a surge of urgency, that becomes the cue to slow down, breathe, and ask a better question. This converts emotional moments into training moments.
Third, we work with the subconscious layer. Many execution problems are not about time management. They are about identity, fear, or internal permission. If someone unconsciously believes “if I slow down, I lose my edge,” they will sabotage calm execution. When we update that pattern, implementation becomes natural.
Finally, we measure. Not only outcomes, but behaviours. The leader can see progress, and the brain loves evidence. Evidence builds confidence, and confidence sustains change.
How is your approach to coaching unique?
I translate complex neuroscience into practical tools that leaders can use immediately, without drowning them in theory.
My perspective is simple and firm: I do not believe leaders should choose between being effective and being human. I vote for balance. When leaders learn to integrate strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, subconscious pattern work, and intuition, and find the right proportions for their own temperament, they become both more successful and genuinely happier, without losing their edge.
My coaching is both deep and structured. Deep, because we go into patterns, identity, and emotional conditioning. Structured, because leaders need a clear path, not abstract insight.
In workshops, I focus on short, high impact frameworks teams can apply in real time. People leave with language, tools, and a shared operating system, not just inspiration.
What is your current focus in the Middle East?
My current focus is expanding collaborations with organisations and leadership communities in the Middle East, particularly where growth is rapid and leadership stakes are high. The region has a unique combination of ambition, speed, and global exposure. That creates opportunity, and it also creates pressure.
I support leaders who want to scale without losing themselves, and organisations that want modern leadership development grounded in psychology, neuroscience, and real execution.
In what industry do you see the most rapid growth for the services you provide?
I see the fastest growth anywhere intensity is high and the cost of poor decisions is real: tech and high growth entrepreneurship, investment and finance, fast scaling SMEs, and leadership roles inside transformation heavy organisations. The more complex the environment, the more valuable emotional regulation and subconscious pattern work becomes.
In these worlds, people often forget they are human beings first. But your emotional state and nervous system stability directly shape the quality of your thinking, decisions, relationships, and execution. When leaders train both performance and inner balance, outcomes improve, and the experience of leading becomes lighter, clearer, and more sustainable. They are building the future which deserves to be healthy and conscious.
What is next for you?
Next is expansion of my work through more conference speaking, collaborations, and structured programmes that can reach leadership teams at scale, while keeping the depth and confidentiality of my private practice.
I also want to continue building tools that make transformation measurable and practical. Coaching should feel like a strategic advantage, not like a luxury.
How can readers find out more and connect with you?
You can find most information about my work, including session availability and ways to get in touch, on my website. It is the best place to read about my approach and request a private conversation.
I also highly appreciate LinkedIn, as I share many of my current thoughts and articles there, and it is the good way to follow my work in real time. And of course, email remains an excellent method of communication for professional inquiries and collaborations.
