Jörn B.

Jörn B.

5.0

(10)

Certified Leadership Coach | Former International CEO | INSEAD Alumni

Studied at INSEAD

Worked at Freudenberg

Hiring Manager

Available Tuesday at 6:30 PM UTC

Usually responds within 2 hours

Please note that for any sessions canceled or rescheduled less than 24 hours in advance, the scheduled coaching time will be logged. This allows me to manage my calendar and uphold my commitment to all clients.

Protected by the Leland Experience Guarantee

Available Tuesday at 6:30 PM UTC

Usually responds within 2 hours

Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.

Jörn's Coaching Offerings

Leadership Development Start-to-Finish

Expert coaching to help you become a more effective leader.

Starting at $1,66310h+ of coaching

Custom hourly

Get help with Conflict Resolution, Change Management, and .

Jörn also coaches for Career Coaching and Sales. View all.

Jörn’s Leadership Coaching Qualifications

Coaches professionally

Experience level: Executive

60+ people coached for Leadership Coaching

Jörn has helped clients get into these companies:

Transform your global leadership impact: Former CEO & Board Member who led 40+ countries now coaches executives through international challenges. Master stakeholder dynamics, cross-cultural teams & executive presence with proven strategies. My 25-year journey from engineer to CEO to Global Executive Board Member taught me that exceptional leadership transcends borders and cultures. Through our coaching partnership, I help you develop the sophisticated capabilities that today's interconnected business world demands—whether you're stepping into your first international role or elevating your global executive presence. My track record speaks to the challenges you face: I've doubled international sales while transforming organizations, negotiated with Fortune 500 giants like General Electric and DaimlerChrysler, and led successful turnarounds across Europe, Americas, and Asia. Fluent in five languages and seasoned across American directness, German precision, and Asian relationship-building, I bring nuanced understanding to the invisible dynamics that determine global leadership success. I specialize in coaching executives who must unite diverse teams, influence complex stakeholder networks, and deliver results across cultural boundaries. Together, we'll develop your authentic leadership style that commands respect in any boardroom—from Silicon Valley to Tokyo. Through powerful questions and real-world frameworks, I help you navigate the paradoxes of global leadership: when to standardize versus localize, how to build trust across time zones, and ways to turn cultural differences into competitive advantages.

Jörn can help with:

Conflict Resolution

Change Management

Diversity and Inclusion

Coaching and Mentoring

Jörn also coaches for Career Coaching and Sales. View all.

About Jörn

My journey from a German engineering student to an international CEO spanning five countries taught me that leadership isn't about having all the answers - it's about navigating uncertainty with grace. As a child, I experienced expatriation firsthand when my family moved abroad and then returned to small-town Germany, making me an outsider among my classmates. That early sense of not quite fitting in sparked a lifelong curiosity about different cultures and drove me to seek my Fulbright scholarship to the United States. Twenty-five years of leading global organizations across 40+ countries revealed a truth I wish I'd known earlier: our greatest growth comes from our most difficult challenges. Whether navigating a painful business divestiture as a CEO in France or advocating for my own career advancement within a traditional German corporation, each obstacle taught me that we can only control how we perceive and respond to situations. This realization - hard-won through experience and the guidance of exceptional coaches and mentors - became the foundation of my leadership philosophy. Today, my wife and I have come full circle, returning to Paris where we began our journey as a young couple from different nations choosing to build our life in a third country. Our two now-adult children, raised across France, Germany, and the US, embody the global mindset we cherished. While they pursue their own international paths, we gather regularly to hike, bike, and share stories over long dinners. Living in Paris's vibrant cultural scene, I balance my coaching practice with the simple pleasures that keep me grounded: morning runs along the Seine, exploring neighborhood cafés with my wife, and taking advantage of our 200+ theaters. My volunteer work with ENACTUS, mentoring student entrepreneurs with social projects in Africa, Asia, and South America, reminds me daily that crossing borders - whether geographic, cultural, or mental - remains life's most rewarding adventure.

Why do I coach?

My journey into coaching began in a boardroom crisis. As a CEO navigating a complex divestiture, I found myself isolated at the top - plenty of people willing to tell me what I wanted to hear, but few trusted advisors willing to challenge my thinking. Working with an executive coach transformed not just my business results, but how I showed up as a leader. Later, during a personal crossroads, a life coach helped me navigate choices I couldn't see clearly alone. These experiences revealed coaching's power to unlock perspectives we can't access on our own. Throughout my 25-year leadership journey, nothing matched the satisfaction of developing my team members. Watching a hesitant manager find their voice, seeing a cultural outsider become a confident leader, or receiving an email years later from someone whose career took flight after our work together - these moments mattered more than any financial target. Many executives I coached a decade ago now lead major organizations themselves, and they often remind me that our conversations were pivotal moments in their journey. Today, I bring a unique lens to coaching through my lived experience across cultures. Having led teams in 40+ countries, negotiated in five languages, and navigated the unwritten rules of business from Detroit to Tokyo, I help leaders decode the cultural dynamics that textbooks can't teach. My questions come from real boardroom dilemmas, actual expatriate challenges, and genuine cross-cultural misunderstandings turned into breakthroughs. Coaching is how I pay forward the guidance that made my own journey possible. Every mentor who pushed me beyond my comfort zone, every coach who helped me see my blind spots - they invested in my future. Now it's my turn. Whether I'm coaching a corporate leader through a global expansion that seemed impossible or mentoring ENACTUS students launching social projects in emerging countries, I'm privileged to play a small part in their larger story. My systemic coaching approach honors this belief in transformation through self-discovery. Rather than prescribing solutions from my own experience, I partner with you as the expert on your own challenges and opportunities. Through powerful questions that reveal new perspectives, we'll focus on what you can influence and the goals that matter most to you. Because I've learned that lasting change - whether navigating cultural complexity or leading transformation - comes from within, not from without.

Work Experience

Executive Leadership Coach

Cultural Immersion Inc.

February 2022 - Present

I coach executives through two critical career moments: preparing for international assignments with successful cultural transitions, and navigating real-world challenges in leadership development programs for global companies.

Global Executive Board Member

Freudenberg

February 2011 - December 2021

Hiring Manager

As Global Executive Board Member at Klüber Lubrication (part of the €12B Freudenberg Group), I doubled international sales in core market segments in 7 years while transforming leadership capabilities across 40 countries. Building partnerships with industry leaders - from GE and Caterpillar to Airbus and Mitsubishi - I learned that sustainable success requires developing strong local leaders. This experience of coaching managers through complex challenges while delivering measurable results shaped my values-based systemic coaching approach, which now helps executives achieve both business impact and personal growth.

CEO Gasket Division

Freudenberg

December 2007 - January 2011

Hiring Manager

As CEO of a €120M division serving BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche, I faced a dual challenge: transform the business while leading as an expatriate. The strategic pieces - divestitures, alliances, outsourcing - were clear. But success came from coaching my leadership team to embrace change and own the transformation. This experience crystallized my conviction that intensive leadership development isn't a nice-to-have during turnarounds - it's the difference between temporary fixes and lasting success.

Jörn was also given offers to work at