International Entrepreneur, Certified Coach, Published Author‒Interview With Sandrine Gelin-Lamrani

Sandrine is an international serial womentrepreneur. For almost 25 years, she has been developing consulting, training, coaching ventures on 4 continents and 8 different countries, both as a corporate consultant, a management and communication focused trainer and a professional coach, across a range of different industries including IT, Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, Education, Security, Media.

Her coaching credentials include ICF Associate Certified Coach, Success MindsetMaps & Cultural Orientations Framework Certified Coach, NLP & CLEEN Practitioner. She holds a Master’s degree in political science and an Advanced Master degree in international business. She is a member of the ICF Swiss chapter and the International Association for Generative Change (IAGC). As a management and communication focused published author, Sandrine wrote numerous books dedicated to professional efficiency. She is also a contributing writer to various digital media. Her work has been awarded with different distinctions among which the Finance Monthly Global Award and the Gamechangers™ Global Award as "Career Coach of the Year" Turkey 2021/2022. She is unlisted in the Global Advisory Expert Guide as a Business Coach.

Founder of G&L Shift®, leveraging 3.0 e-coaching online tools in service of her global service approach, she helps entrepreneurial leaders, managers, teams and expatriates in their transition, evolution, innovation journeys.

Sandrine Gelin-Lamrani, Professional Coach

What is your big vision, your big purpose?

Getting to one’s “big vision” or “WHY” or “purpose” is probably one of the most important and deepest reflections that we help our clients undertake as coaches. So, I naturally went through this exercise when I added a string to my bow by deciding to dedicate my professional time to the coaching profession back in 2019.

Supported by Robert Dilts’ tools in that exercise (https://en.glshift.com/success-mindsetmap), I unleashed my distinctive thrive to see individuals and organizations move and work together, in a world whose complexity and perpetual change are sources of multidimensional learning and self-expression in harmony with the overall environment.

And as I was contemplating this vision of mine, I realized that I had been doing exactly that ever since I started my career. Throughout my life-work journey, my purpose has been to contribute to the growth of others and my own, to connect with extraordinary human beings and organizations, leveraging those intercultural complementarities that I have been in contact with.

What made you chose the coaching profession specifically?

In addition to my consulting and training activities, I have developed further into the role of an international professional coach for the last 5 years. This has followed a deep new connection with my “altruistic value” : a genuine drive to dedicate energy and resources to help and benefit others in a humanizing sense.

The coaching profession also echoes my need for constant learning. I like what Albert Einstein says about this : “Once you stop learning, you start dying”. Very relevant for me.

How did you adapt to a new business reality post pandemic?

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, I was based in Morocco, in transition to a new country, Turkey. Even though I was coaching and consulting for several clients in Morocco, I saw my new mobility as an opportunity to boost my practice’s internationalization.

So, this is what I did: I leveraged digital tools, like-minded transnational partnerships and a globalized agile venture to the benefit of my customers throughout Europe and Africa, that I serve in both languages, French and English. I am currently in another relocation process to Spain and I can see how much easier it has become to continue operating while in the move.

In what type of situation do your clients solicit you?

I specialize in Business, Team, Executive, Career, Expat & Intercultural Coaching. My scope of work is focused on the professional arena and it is very diverse at the same time. I have 3 main categories of clients that solicit me for various reasons.

Business owners/company founders, when :

• they have business strategical goals to achieve/issues to address,

• they lack clarity in specific situations,

• they have urgent business matters to deal with.

Managers and their teams within large international corporations, when :

• they want to optimize their professional performance/cohesion,

• they experience difficult managerial or inter-personal communication issues,

• they feel stuck in their professional development goals.

Individuals, particularly expatriates, when :

• they want to expand their career opportunities,

• they want to improve their work/life balance,

• they want to get the best of their intercultural professional/personal journey.

Can you share more about what you do for your clients?

Let me give you a few examples of my work with some of my most recent clients:

• Helping entrepreneurial leaders navigate strategical projects and goals (commercial and organizational growth, managerial challenges, company’s ownership transfer, key investment decisions)

• Helping Teams navigate deep organizational and culture change (to adapt to value system, market, legal, innovation … shifts)

• Helping individuals navigate their career path (re-inventing themselves by choosing an activity that makes sense to them, getting in/out of a position)

What are you the proudest of?

Without any hesitation, my international life-work path. Today, I am grateful to have built a family, together with my husband and daughter, that is international and intercultural. I am grateful to be able to define myself as a multilingual professional, operating in many different cultural environments. This gives me the ability to understand the unique cultural dimensions, instinctive drives and motivational values of my clients, thus allowing me to connect cross-culturally.

What do you see for yourself in 10 years from now?

I have been asking myself that exact same question every 10 years for the past 2 decades! I actually wrote an article on that exact subject. So, in 10 years’ time, I will be contributing to a larger whole in my unique way, reinventing myself in a different way again. But hush … this is a work in progress as we speak.

Do you have anything exciting coming up?

Yes! I am currently putting the second cohort of the “Women Shifting Program”, an international targeted online coaching program that I created with 3 others like minded agile coaches to support our fellow womentrepreneurs in their heroes’ journey. We are thrilled to contribute in this very distinctive way to women’s leadership throughout French-speaking countries in Europe and Africa.

To conclude and as you are French, I’d like to propose you a variation of the well-known “Marcel Proust’s questionnaire”

• What inspires you creatively, spiritually, emotionally?

Pioneering humanizing courage

• What discourages you creatively, spiritually, emotionally?

Abuse of power

• Which talent would you most like to have?

Composing music

• What historical figure do you most admire?

Maria Montessori

• What living person do you most admire?

Greta Thunberg

• What do you appreciate the most in your friends?

Their frankness

• What is your favorite book?

Schachnovelle (A chess story) by Stefan Zweig

• Who is your favorite contemporary author?

Fouad Laroui

• Who is your favorite painter?

Antoni Tapies

• What is your motto?

Get gRowing

• What is your greatest fear?

To lose my overall balance

• How do you wish to die?

Fast

• What is your present state of mind?

At ease

Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sandrine!