Hi, ciao, salut, olá, hola, ä½ å¥½!
Welcome to my coaching world, full of navigation metaphors, jokes about my colour blindness and structured help to make you thrive in your career.
I help international professionals in Brussels stop drifting in roles that don't fit them, and make a deliberate course correction so they land work that makes sense - without blowing up their life.
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​I’ve spent over a decade working in & around the EU bubble: I know how Brussels is full of people who are competent and trusted, but quietly stuck.
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Project, programme, product and comms people in EU institutions, UN agencies, NGOs, lobbies and consultancies. People who look fine on paper but feel the Sunday dread.​
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People who don’t need motivational quotes or “just follow your passion” advice. They need the permission to slow down and think properly.
I was one of them.
And now I help them write their career stories in their own terms.
I trained at Kingstown College (Ireland), I'm a EMCC accredited coach at Practitioner level, and I'm a Full Member of the of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School affiliate - this means I’m not guessing or winging it: my work is structured, ethical, and grounded.
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I coach in English, Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish (in order of fluency). I used to speak Chinese too but it's too rusty now :-)
I don't sell fantasy pivots. I respect life constraints and I name the pressure from the system. But still, I insist that you can steer your ship.
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Remember though: I do coaching, not therapy. If you need clinical support, I will encourage you to get it and can suggest options.
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You can find me on LinkedIn to know more about my day-to-day work.
My story
I once broke a "bite guard" in my sleep.
You know, the thing to avoid grinding your teeth. It’s designed to resist pressure - until it doesn’t.
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That was when I admitted that my "fine" wasn’t fine.
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...rewind.
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When I was 18, I wanted to study psychology. Or languages. Or political science.
For family and financial reasons, I chose the third one, but kept the other two alive.
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Languages "left from the door and came back in from the window". At university and in my free time, I studied French, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese, on top of Italian and English.
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Psychology kept creeping up, too. I read books, watched videos, and tested the ideas on myself and on friends.
"Dani, I need your wise advice" became a familiar line.
Without planning it, I turned into a pocket, amateur psychologist.
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After university, I built a solid career in international environments in Brussels, at the intersection of event management and communications. It looked good and it paid well, but inside, something was quietly off.
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The mismatch grew, mixed with overwork, until my body stopped negotiating.
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A few days after the broken bite guard, I was on holiday when a dear colleague messaged me about something small but urgent. I liked him, and it was not a big deal. But my body disagreed: anxiety hit and I started hyperventilating. I calmed down thanks to my friends.
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Back at work, Monday morning, empty office, I sat staring at my screen. A phone call "woke me up". I hung up, looked at the clock, and thought: where have the past 20 minutes gone?
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That day I called my doctor. The symptoms were clear, so he signed me off.
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R-E-S-T. For the first two weeks I slept 14, 16 hours a day. I felt like a zombie. I could not focus.
Close friends were sticking around, patient and blunt, and told me to leave town for a bit.
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So I went to Athens with two of my best friends. After a couple of days, relaxed and properly fed, the thought landed, like a long-awaited sigh.
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I need a career change.
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It arrived as relief. I did not know where I was going, or how. But I knew I’d figure it out by asking better questions than the ones I’d been using to survive.
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It was not my first crossroads. Years earlier, I’d been made redundant, and I did not have the courage to stop and ask myself, what do I really want?
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This time, I did. A quick Google search led me to an Italian career coach in Brussels. She asked me the right questions, and I surprised myself with the answer.
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"I want to do your job."
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That sentence felt like coming home.
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Political science taught me systems.
Languages taught me how people make meaning across cultures.
Psychology had been following me the whole time.
Coaching let me choose them all in one life.
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Today, I coach multilingual professionals in Brussels who look successful on the outside and feel stuck, drained, or quietly miserable on the inside. Often with real constraints. I help them understand themselves well enough to make grounded career decisions, then turn that clarity into a plan they can actually live with.
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I do this because I know what it costs to ignore the signal for too long.
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And because I also know what’s possible on the other side.
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I can now honestly say: I f-ing love this job.
And you can say it too.
My philosophy
You gotta know where you are, before knowing where to go.
Most career advice skips that part and jumps straight to action: I do the opposite.
We slow down just enough to name what’s not working, identify what you genuinely want, and make decisions that respect your real constraints - money, family, energy, identity... you name it.
I’m structured, because vague hope is not a plan. We start by mapping strengths, values, and beliefs, then we translate that into a practical direction you can trust.
I write things down and we turn insight into a short set of next steps you can actually do between meetings.
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You can also expect direct communication. I’ll reflect what I see, challenge the story that keeps you stuck, and help you separate signal from noise, including what your nervous system has been trying to tell you for months.
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My subtle edge is this mix: I treat your inner experience as real data, and I treat the system you work in as part of the problem. That combination helps you stop pathologising yourself while still taking responsibility for your choices.
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I don’t do fantasy career makeovers. I won’t push you to blow up your life for a dramatic reinvention. We build progress through small, testable moves that add up to a solid course correction.
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If we work together, you’ll leave with clearer language, cleaner decisions, and a plan that feels both ambitious and sane.
My promise
You will leave with:
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a clear and coherent picture of your career story, to help you in your presentation
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a decision you can stand behind, for a goal that doesn't feel fuzzy
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a realistic career plan you can execute without torching your life.
Narrative, conversations, action plans, next steps: everything is built around real life constraints - e.g. money, visas, family, other responsibilities...
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What I will help you with: think clearly, organise the mess, and keep moving. I will practise radical honesty with kindness.
What I will not do: therapise you, or pretend there is a perfect job.
And I won’t make decisions for you.
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If you want calm, direct guidance and a plan you can live with, we should talk.