Portret
Passion
What is your passion? What gives you energy, what brings out the best in you? For Katja Staartjes it is the mountains. She feels at her best when surrounded by majestic, peaceful nature, far away from the hustle and bustle of Western life.
“The mountains inspire me. I combine my work as independent interim-manager with the sport of mountaineering and the giving of lectures and training courses. I also write about my climbing experiences. A great combination. At the heart of these activities is the inspiring of people.”
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Lectures
Visualised with fantastic images, Katja Staartjes gives impressive lectures about her mountaineering experiences. As she tells her story, she takes you all the way to the top. A mountain is an excellent metaphor for life in general, and work situations in particular. During the lecture, various parallels are drawn between the climbing expedition and issues from our daily work and private lives. Read more about it under: Lectures.
Background and work experience
Katja Staartjes studied food technology at the Agricultural University of Wageningen. In the 1980s, she formed part of the national athletics selection (800, 1,500 and 3,000 m).
After graduating, she worked in the dairy industry (Campina) for eight years, where she filled management positions in the quality control, logistics and production divisions. The merging of DMV Campina and Melkunie Holland gave her the opportunity to gain experience in the complexity of corporate transition.
In 1996, Katja Staartjes joined UMC Utrecht (the former university hospital and Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital) where she was responsible for the General and Technical Services during the merger and the construction of the new Children’s Hospital.
The turning point came after some two years. Katja resigned from her job to focus exclusively on mountaineering for a while. During that year, she climbed Cho Oyu in Tibet (8,201 m) and led trekkings in the Alps. The ascent of Mount Everest followed a year later.
Current professional work
Katja Staartjes currently runs her own company. In addition to giving lectures, she also accepts assignments as independent interim-manager. She also wrote the books entitled Hoog spel (High Stakes, 1999, only available in Dutch) and Top-inspiratie (Peak Performance, 2008. Translated in English in 2009. See Books). In addition, the climber offers unique training courses in the field of personal leadership and team spirit. She does this in collaboration with experienced management trainers.
Philosophy
The underlying principle of Katja Staartjes’s activities is: to inspire those involved. Katja gets people thinking: What is it really all about for me/us? Are we truly focussing on the right things? How do we ensure that we actually reach our goal?
Katja Staartjes describes her philosophy as follows:
- Integrity and open communication form the basis of a healthy atmosphere, team spirit and work relation.
- In order to be happy and successful, it is vital that you know what you truly want and also act upon it.
- Set goals that are concrete, as well as attainable.
- Decision-making is essential for the actual execution of the goals you set.
- You must be willing to accept the consequences of the choices made, and accept responsibility for your behaviour and the final outcome.
- Take one or two steps at a time - never ten.
- If you truly want something and also go all out to achieve it, you’ll soon see that things are much to achieve than you initially thought.
- The attainable “tops” differ from person to person, from team to team, and from organisation to organisation. But tops also change in the course of a lifetime. The key words here are: dreams, challenges and development.
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