About us
Brilliant Work consists of a team of highly experienced and educated associates who we pair up with our clients depending on the type of assignment and the expertise needed for it. We are made up of business coaches, business advisers, trainers and HR experts, each with bags of experience in their field.
We were founded in 2016 and combine tried and tested methods with a fresh look at things and serve both small to medium sized businesses, schools, foundations and other types of organisations. Our people not only posses great theoretical knowledge in their field, but have also earned their spurs in the world of business and are very easy and open to talk to. So set up a meeting and we can see what we can do for your organisation.
In most cases we can help you on a subsidised basis, either from the province of Gelderland or the Dutch government. Examples are 100% funded export coaching, 50-80% subsidised growth coaching for businesses in Gelderland and 50% funded Brexit coaching.
Lizanne Jakobs – business coach, adviser and public speaker
Lizanne (1973) is Brilliant Work’s founder. She has a broad view on business gained by 20+ years experience in a whole array of sectors. Lizanne has a Master’s degree in International Business Communications, a certified Ology coach and DISC trainer. She speaks 5 languages, which came in very handy in her international career. From 1996 to 2010 she fulfilled several hands on and managerial positions in customer service, marketing and sales.
Since then she has worked as a business coach, adviser and public speaker, both in the Netherlands and the UK. She lived in the UK for 13 years and was named one the top 50 consultants of the country by Enterprise Nation.
Lizanne is a subject matter expert at the Dutch Institute of Knowledge Transfer (INVK). She leads workshops there on topics such as strategy, marketing, change management and leadership.
She is a SIB/export coach on behalf of the Rijksinstituut voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO). This allows her to provide fully subsidised export plans with her clients. Lizanne can also provide subsidised coaching through the Startversneller and Groeiversneller programmes for companies based in Gelderland and Overijssel. She is a subsidised Brexit adviser and the first one to get accreditation for this in the Netherlands.
Marco Gorselink – strategy expert for SME’s, business coach
Marco (1970) has over 20 years experience in various functions in a range of SME organisation, such as property management, financial services, recruitment of technical roles. He has wealth of experience in acquisition and account management for both B2C and B2B organisations. After his Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics, Marco completed a post grad course in Commercial Property Management, a course in Integral Psychology and a basic training in Family constellations. Of course he regularly updates his (commercial) knowledge with numerous workshops and trainings.
Marco is very adapt at simply and clearly explaining the concept of strategy, making it easy to understand and put into practice. Implementation is an indispensable part of this process. Marco facilitates strategy sessions and support management teams in transitions. He also provides executive coaching, team coaching and individual coaching.
Fokko Bonsma – Business coach, trainer, personal effectiveness developer
Fokko (1964) has a Bachelor’s degree in commercial management (for the automotive sector) and has over 30 years experience in SME’s in Holland and abroad. He has first hand experience in import, export, horticulture and the automotive sectors as both a founder, owner, manager and sales and marketing expert. As an exporter he has provided markets such as the US, Canada and Kazachstan with freshly cut flowers and bulbs.
He has a wealth of experience in sales, acquisition, communication and account management as well as the development of personal effectiveness, all within both B2B and B2C environments.
In 2006 (with the help of a burn-out) his focus shifted from the outside to the inside, which resulted in him taking up courses on coaching, counselling and co-dependence as a logical consequence. His qualification as a Strategic Intervention Coach helps Fokko to combine hard business targets with what people call “soft skills”. He enjoys confronting people in a non threatening manner.
The current projects he works on are in the area of personal effectiveness, such as one to one coaching of employees, directors, management teams as well as larger teams. He has been advising new entrepreneurs for over 10 years through subsidised programmes like IkStartSmart and the Startversneller.
Carlo van Rienen – Franchise Consultant
Carlo (1968) is an experienced adviser to companies looking to develop, refine or grow a franchise formula or similar commercial collaboration. He provides feasibility studies, develops franchise– and licensing formulas and writes franchise agreements and manuals. He also helps to recruit franchisees and aides franchise formulas in professionalising, managing or internationally expanding their formula.
Carlo has been active in the world of franchising since 2002 as a franchiser and adviser to central franchisers and other service organisations. As a franchiser he was responsible for HypotheekDesk, a formula for financial advisers. Under his supervision the organisation grew from 5 to 42 locations. Carlo works as franchise specialist, formula developer, process manager, interim formula manager or franchise mediator. He is involved as a change manager in transition projects for franchise formulas and other commercial relationships. Carlo supports franchisers and formula managers in managing the formula or the relationship with the franchisees. In addition, he publishes and teaches on his area of expertise.
Ivar van Asten – business coach, team developer and trainer
After a successful career in sales and marketing in the logistics sector, Ivar (1967) started as a coach and adviser in 2005. He helps starting entrepreneurs, managers, directors and board members. He mostly does this through subsidised programmes like the Startversneller, Leren van Elkaar circles and Starters International Business (SIB). Apart from that he also leads some of the groups within VNO-NCW Achterhoek, an organisation supporting medium sized and larger employers. He has been able to help over 200 entrepreneurs realise their dream, nearly 90% of them still actively run a company.
Ivar actively supports developing teams and uses experience based training for that, as they bring both great learning and enjoyment to the team. Through outdoor actives as a metaphor for collaboration, communication, leadership, strategy, creativity and team work he has helped teams become closer since 2006. He can support this further by coaching team members and managers, leading brainstorm sessions and follow up workshops in the areas of communication & collaboration. If needed he uses aids to help teams understand each other’s behaviours such as DiSC, Belbin, NLP, MBTI, Enneagram and the various colour diagrams. Ivar is a natural networker who believes in your authenticity.
He combines his work in Holland with living in Southern France. Because of Ivar’s current and past experience in international business, he is also a very qualified export coach.
Stef van Boekel – Export coach
Stef (1984) has been active in the field of international business since 2006, the first five years of which mostly in the area of business development and acquisition. He has more than earned his spurs as an entrepreneur, manager and director.
In the last seven years he has focused himself on international e-commerce and the operations that come with that. He has worked in over 20 countries and lived in five. Stef is a consultant and coach in the area of scale-ups and international growth.
Stef has helped countless B2B and B2C organisations to position themselves internationally, from SME’s to Fortune 500-bedrijven. Knowing that a company has a much stronger position when it operates without national borders, he has helped clients with all aspects of strategy and execution since 2016. Stef’s style and methods can best be described as no nonsense, focus on progress and the decisions needed to get achieve this. Stef is an SIB coach on behalf of the RVO, meaning he can make 100% subsidised export plans with his clients.
Willem van Putten – Export coach, Business coach with expertise in Sales and Marketing
Willem (1961) has held many national and international (interim) posts at director level. In most cases these meant that he had to go and create turnover in new foreign markets for the products or services of mostly Dutch companies. This led him to the realisation that the directness of which most Dutch people are very proud, does not always work so well abroad.
Besides managing companies he has coached a number of start-ups in their “journey” to export. It is incredibly rewarding to make these businesses successful abroad and it creates so much energy. In many cases the entrepreneur focuses too much on the product or service they want to offer and to little on legislation, licenses, certificates and marketing.
Willem also teaches at Nyenrode University and the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. In Rotterdam he teaches on a variety of subjects such as doing business with different cultures. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in social geography from the RUU, a Master’s in Information Management (KUB) and has partaken in management training at Insead, IMD and Kellogg.