Today, I am excited to speak with René Sonneveld, a Leadership and Family Business Coach and Honorary Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Uruguay. René a has rich history as Managing Director, CEO, and Chairman at Fortune 500 companies and family-run businesses across four continents, and he now leverages this vast experience to coach leaders and corporate teams. Besides leadership and family enterprise coaching, René is deeply committed to sustainability. He aims to create a green hydrogen supply chain from South America to Europe.

Throughout his career, René has served many multigenerational families and has found that often, as he puts it, there’s “an elephant in the room” that gets in the way of families collaborating effectively and achieving their goals. He talks about what “the elephant in the room” is and how to best approach it and, eventually, dispense with it.

René eventually discovered coaching and dedicated his life to this noble calling. He shares his beliefs on why coaching is the best tool to empower families to succeed and how it helps eliminate “the elephant in the room” that holds them back.

One technique René deploys in his coaching work is what he calls “the icebreaker”. He describes how it works and what the benefits families and family enterprises can reap from this practical tool.

Families and family enterprises are complex organisms, commonly involving a great number of players who are entangled in complicated and often emotionally charged relationships. These can include family leaders, blood family, children, in-laws, advisors, to mention just a few key constituents. René offers his advice on when to bring in whom in the coaching process with the family in order to achieve the best results.

Enjoy this insightful conversation with a world-renowned leadership coach and family advisor.