ABOUT
ARJAN

Arjan Eenkema van Dijk, Founder and CEO of InspireShift

Arjan is the founder of InspireShift, a boutique leadership consulting firm specializing in executive coaching, career development and organizational consulting. Arjan is a certified executive coach, a sought-after speaker, and an engaging facilitator. She adeptly collaborates with the Human Resources departments of major corporations and also engages with clients on an individual basis. Arjan partners globally with C-suite executives, senior leaders, high potential middle level managers, and founders of start-up organizations to define and attain their leadership and business objectives. Arjan is an expert in leadership development, female leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, mindset, personal branding, and career transition. On an organizational level, she focuses on 360 degree feedback processes, team alignment and cultural change.

Her clients call her inspiring, insightful, and motivating.

Building a deeply personal rapport with each client, Arjan helps to advance her client’s already highly respected career to one that is both impactful and personally gratifying. She supports her clients to develop an authentic leadership style and increase their leadership effectiveness as well as the effectiveness of the teams and the organizations they manage. Often, she serves as a sounding board for executive leadership.

About

What Clients Say:

“Arjan is a gifted, intuitive and strategic executive coach, the kind of coach that is few and far between. She is a tremendous asset to IKEA and has supported many leaders in different areas of the organization. Arjan simultaneously challenges and deeply supports our leaders so they can achieve maximum growth. Her coaching is grounded in research, yet always practical and she uses her knowledge about neuroscience to educate our leaders on effective communication and a positive mindset, two elements crucial to sustained success. Drawing on her rich experience as an executive coach, she has a natural aptitude to combine both business and individual goals. Leaders tackle real-time problems with her, which she consistently ties back towards the greater journey they are on. Calm in crisis, she always stays focused on the bigger picture, understanding which levers to pull and how to empower her clients to advance. I can’t thank her enough for the impact she has created and can highly recommend her to any Chief HR Executive looking to grow their people and business results.”

Simon Lowes – Chief Human Resources – USA, IKEA

“Arjan has been a strong partner over many years. She combines her business and people skills into high level results for our company. She helps our leaders become more effective in their role and supports their personal development. Our executives very much appreciate working with her and consistently speak about her high business acumen and great understanding of leadership. They highlight her ability to build trust, listen effectively, educate and challenge them to create forward momentum towards their goals. They especially appreciate her integrity, confidentiality, and wisdom.”

Richard Mellor, EVP Global Chief Human Resources, R/GA

“Arjan brings professional rigor and emotional depth to each of our conversations. I’ve been coached by Arjan for about 2 years, through some very complex and challenging career events. She has an extraordinary ability to synthesize all important factors, bring clarity to opportunities and focus on how to approach them. Even though I’m a pretty lucid thinker, Arjan’s counsel always clears fog from the road ahead. Somehow, she retains (in shockingly vivid detail) each step in the long journey; but can zoom out at any time to see the shape of everything. It is refreshing to work with her, as she combines her strategic, results-oriented approach with a deep level of compassion and wonderful sense of humor. I continue to work with Arjan, and benefit immensely.”

Nick Law – Chief Creative Officer Publicis Groupe, President Publicis Communications at Publicis Groupe

“Arjan combines a high measure of gravitas, a refreshing straightforward approach and a deep level of compassion with an acute business sense. She provides sharp insights, practical advice and honest feedback, which was pivotal to rethinking and improving my communication style. Through her expert guidance, I evolved my leadership style and executive presence. Arjan is brilliant, but humble; visionary, but grounded; logical, but intuitive.”

Neil Hampshire – CIO, ModusLink

Rarely am I at a loss for words until I have to describe someone as brilliant as Arjan. She coached me through a complex merger that was fraught with challenges at every turn and level. Her ability to cut through the chaos, pinpoint the issues, and provide clarity, ensures that the best paths forward are always revealed. She delivers the unvarnished truth with equal parts empathy and compassion, providing actionable guidance at every step. And, at the most difficult moments, she remains in your corner with unrelenting encouragement, warmth and humor. For anyone seeking to grow or change, Arjan is your beacon.

Sherine Kazim, Chief Experience Officer, Wunderman Thompson

“Arjan is a fantastic executive coach, a great supporter, and has been invaluable for my career. She has an admirable capacity to bring clarity to complicated business situations, interpersonal relationships, thoughts and emotions. She creates simplicity by discovering the underlying challenges and opportunities and by always providing a practical and solution-oriented approach. Through collaborating with Arjan, I have developed a greater level of clarity in my work by prioritizing my most important business and individual leadership goals. I have become a better leader; my confidence has increased, we have exceeded our business goals, I have established an effective leadership style, and I have a much broader toolkit available for my own development and the development of my teams. Arjan’s exercises are simple, direct, and very effective. I love working with her and look forward to learning from her business insights, international perspective and general wisdom in every meeting.”

Paola Colombo, Google – Chief of Staff, SumUX

“Arjan is a bloody amazing human being, a gifted coach. She performed a 360 feedback, which was frankly, life-altering. I learned about strengths, I didn’t appreciate in myself before, and how to leverage them to increase my effectiveness. She helped me absorb my weaknesses, to see them objectively, tackle and minimize them. For the first time, in my career, I feel more in control, more empowered, and more self-assured of my abilities.”

Auge Reichenberg, Chief Creative Director, McCann HumanCare

“When I took the role of President at Wunderman NYC, I was clear that I wanted to work with an experienced and highly regarded Executive Coach. I selected Arjan as she came strongly recommended by industry leaders. It was the right decision, as working with Arjan greatly accelerated my integration as a new leader. She interviewed stakeholders, wrote a comprehensive report on the organization which fast-tracked my understanding of the environment, culture, the challenges and opportunities. She helped me develop a vision for the organization, build a cohesive and effective team. Arjan is direct and calls a spade a spade, but it is her warmth, care and great understanding of people and business, that makes her an outstanding coach. Her energy, natural courage, and positive outlook are contagious and I walk away from each meeting with new insights that I can immediately apply. Arjan truly goes the extra mile for her clients. She is a phenomenal partner for anyone who is starting in a new leadership role.”

Helder Santo, President Wunderman New York

“Arjan’s guidance is direct, insightful and clear. She has a wealth of experience and provides great wisdom navigating complex strategic situations. I was originally hired as CFO and within a year promoted to also take on the COO position. I can’t imagine being where I am today in my career without her guidance.”

Jennifer Solomon – COO & CFO, Arts Students League of New York

“Arjan is a phenomenal executive coach. She has profound expertise in leadership development, communication and emotional intelligence. Arjan helped me create successful frameworks for solving the most complex strategic and human resource challenges. She is insightful, articulate and has a deep commitment to excellence. I have become a better leader as a direct result of our work together.”

James Gomez – Division President, CalAtlantic Homes

“Arjan combines business knowledge with people insight. She possesses profound positive intelligence and superb communication skills. She walks the talk and lives by her principles. Arjan helped me evolve my thinking to successfully navigate complex situations presented by a rapidly growing and transforming business, leadership changes and a take-over. My team and I delivered superior results and I thank Arjan for her guidance.”

Terry Stack – VP Treasurer, Harman International

“I immediately thought of Arjan, when I needed to engage an inspirational speaker for an industry event on the topic of confidence and women leadership. Deeply knowledgeable about business, leadership, interpersonal relationships and communications, Arjan offers tremendous value to her audiences. With her unwavering positive demeanor and deep passion, she has an uncanny ability to inspire a room full of people. Her expertise, practical advice and goal-oriented focus ensure that every person leaves her presentations with clear tools and tips that they can immediately apply to enhance their leadership skills. Her charismatic style as well as her flair to truly connect make her a great presenter for a large audience and a powerful facilitator of workshops.”

Chloe Gottlieb, Director Product Design, Google Aps, NY – Former Chief Creative Officer R/GA

“Arjan is an extremely skilled executive coach and organizational strategist. She presents to hundreds of attendees at our iRelaunch Return to Work Conferences and consistently gets top ratings. She has also been a popular and well-regarded coach of our group coaching program. More recently she has taken on an important role with our corporate initiatives. Arjan demonstrates integrity, excellence and an energy level matched by few.”

Carol Fishman Cohen – CEO, iRelaunch

“An exceptional organizational consultant, Arjan supported the scaling of our organization.  She increased alignment within the management team positively impacting company culture. She enhanced collaboration between my Head of Operations and myself, while we were managing a major change, creating greater understanding for each other’s point of view, work approach and communication style, resulting in better outcomes. Our staff calls her the “engineer whisperer.”

Jamie D’Agostino, Founder of Netology

More Testimonials …

Clients

With a global reach, Arjan engages with companies as well as private individuals. She works with clients across industries and in diverse organizations, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Procter & Gamble, Avon, the United Nations, MasterCard, R/GA Advertising, New York Hospital, BlackRock, Pearson Publishing, UBS, Deloitte Consulting, Save the Children, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, CalAtlantic Homes, Ernst & Young, Citibank, the United States Navy, McCann Advertising, Harman International, and Leo Burnett, among others. Her clients span a diverse range of fields, including financial services, marketing, law, education, consumer goods, advertising, healthcare, retail, publishing, and not-for-profit. Read more about clients.

Coaching Style

Arjan builds a highly personal rapport with each client and combines a strategic, results oriented approach with a deep level of compassion. Her strategies are based upon the latest research.

Through a dynamic dialogue and partnership, she helps her clients develop clearly defined and manageable objectives, create concrete plans, access new tools, and take the necessary steps to achieve their desired goals. She focuses on her client’s distinctive strengths, creates awareness around opportunities for growth and identifies areas for development to advance a client’s full leadership potential. Uniting her straightforward, goal-oriented approach with an intuitive and organic style, she uniquely accelerates and deepens the process of achieving her clients’ vision. Creativity, positive energy, compassion, humor, and a deep knowledge of business environments and career development are hallmarks of her coaching style. Clients look forward to their meetings as a time to reflect and create new thinking.  Read more about coaching philosophy.

Corporate Background

Arjan has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and non-profit leadership positions and 10 years of experience in the coaching field. As an international marketing executive with the HRI Group of Companies, whose brands include Leading Hotels of the World and Prima Hotels, Arjan held global marketing and communications responsibilities, leading an international sales and marketing staff and representing hundreds of hotel properties worldwide. Her marketing and communication expertise is a strength she consistently incorporates in her coaching to benefit her clients in attaining their goals.

Credentials and Education

Arjan earned an MBA from one of the premier universities in the Netherlands, University of Groningen. She received her coaching certification from New York University and is accredited by the ICF (International Coach Federation), the foremost global coaching organization. In addition, she has advanced certifications in executive, business and career coaching and is a certified practitioner of many personal and leadership assessment tools, such as the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI I + II), the Strong Interest Inventory, the Hogan Leadership Assessments, and the Clark-Wilson 360.

Board and Leadership Positions

Arjan has a record of contributing to her community. She serves on the Advisory Council for the Stanford University Clayman Institute for Gender Research and its Center for the Advancement of Women’s Leadership. She is co-chair of the Women’s Entrepreneur Network. As a coaching expert, Arjan partners with iRelaunch, a national return-to-work organization, where she is a noted speaker at their conferences at Columbia University and Stanford University and facilitates groups for professionals returning to the workforce after a career break. In 2009, Arjan co-founded Lives in Transition, a career networking and support group in the New York metropolitan area, as a timely response to the economic downturn, helping more than 1,000 people during this challenging phase in the job market. Previously, she served for more than a decade on the New York Board of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a national organization advocating for the safety and well-being of foster children. She worked with the victims of the September 11 World Trade Center attack and facilitated bereavement groups for children.

 On a Personal Note

Arjan lives in Rye, New York with her husband and youngest daughter, and loves the visits of her two college-age children. She enjoys travel off-the beaten path, hiking, kayaking, skiing, tennis, theater, cooking and spending time with friends.