Koen Gonnissen

Partner, coach & trainer

Mentally Fit

Koen Gonnissen started his sports career in tennis. At the age of 17 he was elected the best junior tennis player in Belgium, but was stopped due to a back injury. After his active sports career and Master’s degree he gained many years of practical experience through coaching Belgian and international tennis players at the highest level. Under his captaincy, the Belgian tennis Davis Cup team reached the quarter-finals and the year after the semifinal of the world group (1989/99).

Koen holds a Master’s degree in Classic Philology from the University of Leuven and a Postgraduate degree in Physiology. He has a specific interest in the physiology of human body under pressure both on individual and on team level. Making his transfer as a coach from sports to business in 1999, he co-wrote the book ‘The Corporate Athlete’, describing interesting parallels between sports and the corporate world. One important thing you’ll learn from top sport is that efficient energy management is the only way to achieve high sustainable performance: ‘Manage your energy, not just your time!’

Over the years Koen specialized in team performance management, transformational leadership and cultural change. Energy is the fuel that makes great organizations run. Leadership is the art of generating that positive energy. Winning organizations know how to reproduce that energy. Using a combination of academic models and practical examples and cases from the sports world, Koen loves to stimulate teams to get out of their comfort zone, and to find an internal motivation to get to a better collaboration and a more efficient performance. ‘Are you working in a dream team?’ Team Membership is just as important as Team Leadership!