Speakers

Ellen Hermens excels as a communication trainer for public speaking and leadership. She is an NLP trainer (PureNLPTM by Richard Bandler) with an international and varied work background. She has managed key B2B accounts for banks, insurance companies and other international businesses, achieving increased customer satisfaction. As director for one of the world’s largest networking organizations, Ellen has trained and coached entrepreneurs and executives in business development, sales and presentation. Her clients include executives in industry, banking and the financial sector.
Besides coaching, Ellen is an active speaker with a passion for training and delivering motivational speeches. With her wide spectrum of practical coaching experience, she can identify what helps you most. She responds to each client individually and develops together with the client the matching authentic speaking style which fits him or her like a tailor-made suit. One of Ellen Hermens´ expertises is giving feedback to empower to grow one´s potential.
Ellen Hermens is Distinguished Toastmaster and served in a variety of leadership roles from Sergeant at Arms to being District Governor for the Continental European Toastmasters, leading a group of over 50 managers who took care for app. 4000 members in over 160 clubs into the top six of the world: President´s Distinguished District 2009-10. Currently she serves in District 59 Strategic Advisory Board and the Reforming Committee, is member of the Int. Leadership Committee and is sponsor and Vice-President of Education of the Munich Advanced Speakers.
More details can be found on http://www.kingmaker-institute.com/

Thomas Skipwith arbeitet mit seinen Kunden so lange, bis sie es können: überzeugende, informative und spannende Reden halten vor Publikum. Er ist Gründer und Geschäftsführer der DESCUBRIS GmbH, Präsentieren Sie wie ein Profi!, in Zürich. Mehr als 20 Jahre Erfahrung mit Präsentationstechnik, 7 Jahre internationale Unternehmensberatung bei Accenture im Bereich Human Performance und 10 Jahre als Rhetorik-Coach haben in davon überzeugt, dass jeder lernen kann, sich besser zu präsentieren. Thomas Skipwith ist Mitbegründer des „Rhetorik Centers“ an der Uni St. Gallen HSG. Er ist ein aktiver Toastmaster und war Präsident und Gründer von mehreren Rhetorik Clubs. Er ist mehrmaliger Rhetorik-Schweizer- und Europameister (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010). Er hat mehrere Bücher zum Thema Rhetorik geschrieben. Sprachen und Reisen sind seine Hobbys. Er spricht fliessend 4 Sprachen und hat Grundkenntnisse in Chinesisch. Mehr Informationen auf: www.descubris.ch.

Programmer, IT consultant and manager for 15 years, with heaps of experience on both sides of sales barricades. Responsible for 20+ IT department in 8000 people in 11-countries company, spent last 5 dealing with all sorts of incidents, problems and changes in computers, customers and in between them. Since 2008 and the discovery that he can’t really deliver an efficient business presentation, he seeks means to improve as a public, professional speaker.

In 2010 Jerzy joined Toastmasters International and never looked back. In 2010 Jerzy spoke in 9 clubs, 2 contests (finishing at the Division level), delivered 20 speeches including Competent Communicator in 138 days. Member of 4 clubs, club mentor, sponsor and founder (Verbal Victory), served as President, Secretary and Treasurer. Not at the same time, of course.

Owned and founder of speakerslair, he loves to share his public speaking knowledge and test it during workshops, conferences and toastmasters meetings. This led to his membership in SPM (Professional Speakers Association in Poland), where he currently serves as V-President.

An internationally active management consultant and passionate presenter, Natalia delivered dozens of workshops in Europe and North America. In the past three years, she dynamically chaired four Toastmasters conferences as Area and Division Governor in Switzerland, moderated expert panels on topics ranging from social media to female leadership and, in 2010, opened an international photo exhibition in the middle of Zurich Railway station. Natalia fluently speaks four languages and has started to work on the firth one, Spanish, to discover South America in a not too far future. Inspired by the excellent reviews of her moderation at the District 59 Conference in Basel in November 2011, Natalia decided to share her success strategies and techniques in the workshop “Seven Steps to Becoming a Top-Notch Moderator”. Click hereto see Natalia on stage (link: http://vimeo.com/36202517) and visit her blog, www.inter-related.com.

Originally from Zimbabwe, Mahima worked there as the manager of a top modeling agency and fashion buyer. But at the age of 22, her life took an unexpected turn when she found herself profoundly moved by a deep spiritual awakening that took place when she first meditated while in India. She describes it as “a feeling of coming into peace by entering the now and being free from limiting and negative thought patterns.”

This experience led Mahima to stay in India for 5 years with her teacher to learn from him about overcoming personal suffering. When her teacher died in 1997 Mahima realized that she was ready to share her amazing experience of connecting to inner peace and bliss with others so she started giving workshops and personally coaching individuals.

Now on the 19th year of her spiritual journey Mahima has travelled through out Europe giving seminars and workshops on the power of being in the Now. She uses meditation as a tool to empower people to let go, and connect to their limitless inner strength, clarity, compassion and ability to Love.

Mahima is working on her first book “A rebels guide to inner Peace” She continues to hold Meditation workshops and Retreats, as well as one on one private session’s. She is also passionate about her new venture of taking meditation into the corporate world as a preventive measure against burn out and stress.

She currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland.

Olivia Schofield is a Londoner, living in Berlin. She studied dance and choreography at The London School of Contemporary Dance, and voice and stage at Arts Educational. Olivia however, had a speech impediment, which hindered her stage career.

She retrained, and armed with a first-class honours degree in Communication and Linguistics, joined the BBC, behind the camera. Olivia went on to work for some of the great broadcasters in a variety of organisational and business roles, ITN, Granada Television, British Pathe and Ikono TV. In her role as Business Development Manager at ITN Source, one of the large archive houses, Olivia looked after Key accounts including ZDF. WDR and NDR. Still 20 years after giving up dance, her anxiety for speaking had not lessened her passion for performing.

In 2010 a friend introduced Olivia to Toastmasters. The nurturing environment immediately appealed to her; a nurturing environment that would unlock her voice.

18 months after joining Toastmasters, Olivia went on to place first at the District level in the international speech competition. She competed in The World Championship of Public Speaking in Las Vegas in 2011 and out of 30,000 contestants; she placed as the top women and the first District 59er ever to reach the finals.

Olivia says “giving a speech is just like creating a piece of choreography: it should have unexpected twists and turns that leave the audience inspired.” “It took me 25 years to find my voice and another 25 to realise I had something to say!”

Elizabeth Nostedt is a long-standing Toastmaster who helped start many Toastmasters clubs in Sweden. She is the first DTM in Sweden. In 2005-6 she led District 59 to become President’s Distinguished District, and number 3 district in the world! She continues to be a driving force in helping Toastmasters achieve their goals.

After achieving DTM, she continued her education with NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) through Practitioner, Master and Trainer levels. She is also an ACC (Associate Certified Coach).

When she is not being a Toastmaster, she is leading international business and IT projects as a Project Manager at Logica. She attributes Toastmasters and NLP for helping her to success.

Carsten Kiess is a coach and consultant for entrepreneurs. With his company Amberwiz he works with German and international clients, he provides business consulting, coaching and public speaking training.

Since 3 years he is active with Toastmasters International where he served as a president 2010/2011 for the Rheinredner club in Cologne. Currently Carsten serves as the area governor for the Rhein-Ruhr-Area with 7 existing clubs und several more to come.

Carsten holds an MBA from the Open University (UK). He has more than 15 years consulting experience in the IT, financial services and telecommunication industry. He is a coach member of the International Coaching Federation ICF, certified SCRUM and Reiss Profile Master and certified project manager.

See www.amberwiz.comfor details.

Not many people would call me lazy, but my interest in time management springs from a deep fear that I am indeed …. a terrible slacker! I have turned this unpleasant suspicion into a real motor for change, driving me to reach a level of productivity that I had never before imagined possible!

I am a 6 figure Business Owner, Wife and Mother of 3 children (who are all still living at home !), member of 3 TM Clubs (VP Ed for 2 of them), Organiser of a Joint Area contest, Keynote speaker, TM of the Year and YES !! I’ve still got a life ! « How on earth does she do it ? » is a FAQ about me. I was incredibly proud to be the Toastmaster of the Year for District 59 last year.

I visited 10 different countries (my great pleasure is travelling – I get a high just from being on a train!) in 2011, and am off to a good start in 2012. I’m English, and have been living in France for a good many years, and this will be my very first visit to Poland: thanks Toastmasters!

Monique Blokzyl works as an international consultant and coach and is a partner of tetraLD, an organizational development consultancy. Monique was working for over a decade in different Marketing and Change Management positions where she realized that organizations can only be successful if they develop their people in line with their organization. Since early 2005, Monique actively engages in the Toastmasters community in Belgium. It has become her passion to help individuals, teams and organizations to grow by subverting the Pareto principle, in Toastmasters and in business.

Kees got introduced to the Toastmaster organisation in 2000 in New Zealand, having moved there in 1983 from the Netherlands. During his masters studies,started in 1999 and as part of a communication paper he had to write and deliver a speech. His worst nightmare. Luckily the members of a toastmasters club in his neighbourhood were willing to listen to his speech and gave very positive feedback. He got bitten by the toastmaster bug and signed up as a member on the night. He has been on an executive committee of a toastmasters club ever since. Currently he is the District 59 Division F Governor, as well as president of the Esprit de Corps toastmasters club in Frankfurt am Main.

As for the studies, a Master of Management in dispute resolution was successfully completed in 2005. He backpacked around the world for one year to clear the cobwebs and recharge the batteries, planning to set up a business in dispute resolution, focusing on building issues in New Zealand. This would be an extension of designing and building residential dwellings for 25 years in New Zealand.

However there was a change of plans when he got lovestruck on this trip and remarried in Frankfurt am Main end 2007, moving permanently to Germany from New Zealand with plenty of speech topics and stories for future speeches and workshops in his suitkees.