“Sitting there, I knew: there’s something I can contribute.”
Hélène Webers has a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from TU Delft. She spent nearly a decade in operational and Lean leadership roles at GE Plastics and PostNL, working across the Netherlands, Singapore and Spain, before turning toward leadership coaching and facilitation. Today she is a partner at Zhimble. We sat down to trace the thread that connects those two chapters.
What’s a strength you bring that you can’t really put on a CV?
“What I do almost automatically is, I see patterns. One person says something in a particular way. Another says something entirely different, but in the same way. And then I’m asking: what does this pattern say about how you work together? What’s the connection between how you’re doing this and the problems you keep running into?”
“I used to track this analytically. And now, more and more I use my body. I listen, and notice where in my system the energy sits. That guides me: let’s pause here, let’s put a light on this, what’s happening in this moment?”
You built a serious operational career: Chemical Engineering at Delft, Lean Black Belt at GE Plastics, operations manager at PostNL. At some point you made a complete turn. What happened?
“The earliest place to start is a memory from when I was nine or ten. I grew up in a small village; home life was… let’s say, not without its complexities. There was a window in my bedroom that looked out over the main street. At sunset it was beautiful. And sitting there, I knew: there’s something I can contribute. A connection to something bigger, and a sense that I had something to bring.”
“At the time I couldn’t name it, of course. And in the same breath, it was normal to me. It took until my thirties to realize the family I grew up in wasn’t average.”
“One of my survival strategies to find my place, was discovering I could add value by saying smart things. By getting good grades. My father valued that enormously. So that’s what I did. I developed this muscle. Delft felt like the natural place for it: technically rigorous, a world where being one of few women made the achievement feel even more special.”
“After that came GE Plastics, Singapore, PostNL. Ten or twelve years where it was mainly my brain contributing. That was the deal. That’s what work was.”
What makes her laugh is something she found recently: an old application from her mid-twenties. “I’d written that I wanted to be a bridge. Between the technical world and something else, between two kinds of knowing. The insight was already there. I just didn’t know what to do with it yet.”
“I found out I could add value by saying smart things. So that’s what I did.”
So what changed that?
“My husband and I really wanted to have children. But it didn’t happen. And I found it incredibly hard, because people who knew would ask after just a few months: so, how is it going? It felt so intimate, something that was just between me and my husband. Not something I wanted to share with the world. So I went quiet. The quieter I got, the lonelier it became. It took two years before I realized I wasn’t doing well.”
“At the same time I was on a leadership programme at PostNL, where a coach started asking me questions about my work. And I found it amazing. So relieving: someone else asking, and me arriving at things I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t want to bring my personal situation into that context, those worlds were very clearly separated for me in those days. But I asked her who she’d recommend for some personal topics. That’s where my journey really started.”
From there you moved into a much deeper personal development. What was the real turning point?
“I got the opportunity to facilitate a leadership program for women. There I saw it clearly for the first time: I had this total conviction that work meant adding value through your brain. It was so strong. And I realized I hadn’t allowed myself to contribute in any other way, not in a professional context, not while earning my living.”
“The question that broke through was: can this actually be work? Because it gives me so much energy. And it feels so easy. Way too easy to be work. Until that moment, there needed to be hardship in it.”
“Honestly, I can still feel that today. This morning I was coaching someone and there were real insights in the conversation. But afterwards I felt so relaxed that the question came up: was that enough? Did I contribute enough? And I know what question is underneath it: did I work hard enough?”
“Can this actually be work? It feels so easy. And work needs to be hard.”
How would you describe yourself as a facilitator? What do you bring into a room?
“People say I bring a peaceful, calm energy. And that does feel like my base tone. My aunt described me that way when I was one year old: calm, observing. Alongside that is the engineering brain, which is still very much present. I genuinely enjoy shifting into organizational complexity, into structures and problems. Moving between those two modes and enjoying both. That’s the bridge function again. It keeps showing up.”
“What I do almost automatically is, I see patterns. One person says something in a particular way. Another says something entirely different, but in the same way. And then I’m asking: what does this pattern say about how you work together? What’s the connection between how you’re doing this and the problems you keep running into?’
“I used to track this analytically. And now, more and more I use my body. I listen, and notice where in my system the energy sits. That guides me: let’s pause here, let’s put a light on this, what’s happening in this moment?”
You say you’re also willing to sit in discomfort with a group, to not solve things too quickly. Why does that matter?
“If we push for the solution, we’ll end up repeating what we already know. It will look different, but it won’t be. The same problem comes back later.”
“What we know about transformation is that it takes courage to stay in discomfort. When we move from the old to the new, there’s a stretch where neither fully exists. The old isn’t working anymore, the new hasn’t arrived yet. A no man’s land. In that space, difficult emotions gather: fear, anger, sadness. The reflex is to problem-solve out of it as fast as possible. But I have a capacity to stay with the discomfort. That changes what becomes possible.”
She gives a concrete example: a company led by three founders, long past ready to hand over, unable to do it for years. The CEO would get grumpy whenever the conversation got close. One afternoon during a break outside, he finally said it. “You know, the problem is that the people know me. If I leave, they’ll lose trust.”
“My first instinct was to agree. He’d been there thirty years. But I made space for the fear instead of resolving it. And then I asked: what if YOU trust the next generation? Everything shifted. He saw it: if I trust the new management, then through me, other people can trust too. And then the next layer appeared. Maybe the organization’s distrust of the new leaders was simply a reflection of his own distrust. The organization was mirroring what was inside him.”
“If we push for the solution, we’ll repeat what we already know. The same problem comes back.”
How do you know when the work has actually made a difference?
“When people make different choices. Not just at work, anywhere in their lives. That’s when I know something real has shifted.”
“Recently, in a group of fifty leaders, one of them mentioned almost as an aside that his partner had said to him at home, without being prompted: I see you changing. That’s it. That’s the bliss of this work. It doesn’t stay inside the organization. It spreads.”
“Inside organizations, I see collaboration become easier, more fun. People who felt powerless, find back their agency. Departments that were getting in each other’s way start moving towards the same goal.”
And when you’re not working, what are you up to?
“I spend time with my husband and two boys of 11 and 13. Raising our kids is, honestly, one of the places where I learn the most about myself. Then, one night a week, I dance Argentine tango. I love it because the brain has to go quiet for it to work. When my brain is on, the dancing falls apart. What remains is pure attunement, to the leader, to what’s happening right now, to whatever step comes next, full of creativity. It’s a play between two people.”
