Els van Mierop · Strategic Transformation Partner

You know what needs to change.
Making it happen
is the harder part.

I partner with CHROs and executive teams navigating complex, multi-stakeholder transformation — as the trusted, knowledgeable woman alongside you when it matters most.

How I work

Inside enough to
understand.
Outside enough
to stay honest.

The best of both worlds — embedded like an interim, independent like a consultant. I work inside your reality: understanding the context, reading the dynamics, building real relationships with the people who need to move. And I stay far enough outside the politics that slow everything down to tell you what others won’t.

I am the trusted, knowledgeable woman behind you. With you, not for you — yet doing most of the heavy lifting so what reaches you is already shaped and ready to move. Least effort on your side. Highest possible effect.

My engagements are long-term — not retainer-long, but there-when-you-need-me long. Transformation doesn’t follow a project plan. It moves in waves, stalls, resurfaces, needs different pressure at different moments. I stay close enough to know which moment it is.

"You want things to change around you. What's your part in it?"

Real transformation requires individual mindsets to shift alongside organisational structure. The informal side of change matters as much as the formal. The strongest foundation is never cataloguing what’s broken — it’s understanding what’s already working and building from there.

I’ll ask the question no one else in the room will ask. I’ll tell you what people are thinking but not saying. And I’ll stay close enough, long enough, to make sure it actually moves — not just on paper, but in the room where it counts.

What I work on

Four things.
Always connected.

Target Operating Models

How the organisation works.

A new strategy. A structure that grew over time and can no longer support where you need to go. The question is not just what the new model should look like — it's how you bring people through the ambiguity of transforming while still performing. I work on both with equal intensity: the design principles that make the model right, and the human approach that makes it land. With the people who have to make it work, not for them.

Culture & Transformation

How the culture moves.

Every organisation has a list — ownership, accountability, collaboration, innovation, fun, trust, engagement, or something very much like it. The values are rarely the problem. The day to day behaviour is. The gap between what is said and what actually happens is where most culture programmes get lost. Real culture change starts with the leaders who have to run it — meeting them where they are, finding what they have already built and working from there. Equipping them and the informal leaders around them to lead change in a way that makes people feel seen, heard and understood. Not because that is the nice thing to do. Because people who don't feel that way simply don't move.

Leadership & Teams

How the people lead.

Leadership is rarely about skills. It's about identity — who you are in the room, how you show up under pressure, whether you can let go enough to let others lead. I work with executive teams, with leaders stepping up to lead other leaders, and with individuals navigating their day to day reality. Always close, always personal. Drawing on whatever fits the moment — Insights Discovery, NLP, the work of Brené Brown, Joe Dispenza, Tony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle and others — because the right method depends entirely on the right person. Because how you lead is not a technique. It is who you want to be.

Expert Leadership

When the expert becomes the leader.

You built your career on being the best at what you do. Now you're expected to lead — and that's a completely different craft. Not a role you trained for, but one that matters enormously. I work with specialists navigating that shift — medical professionals, architects, engineers and others for whom leadership wasn't the plan but is now the reality. Practical, personal and focused on one question: who do you want to be as a leader, and how do you show up that way every day. For the workshop programmes I partner with Jurko van Veenendaal — bringing complementary expertise to the room.

The work in practice

The work grows
because the trust grows.

Agri-food

A new strategy needed a new culture to support it — one built on performance, growth and the belief that people know best in their own role. People Performance Management was the starting point, but the real work was deeper: empowering leaders to have the honest, meaningful conversations that make strategy real. We designed and delivered those programmes together across all layers of the organisation — from CEO to the industry floor. Still there, still building. Now co-designing the organisation's change management standard. Some partnerships just keep growing.
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Digital Commerce

The CHRO was navigating a real challenge — how to embed a new culture across leadership teams in a fast-moving, ambitious organisation. Together we decided that a shared language was the place to start: Insights Discovery combined with team effectiveness work anchored in their own culture values. The workshops did something unexpected — leaders wanted to go deeper. Individual leadership sparring grew naturally from the room, not from a proposal. Followed by ongoing team sessions to keep the momentum alive. And a specialist programme for senior architects navigating the shift from expert to leader.
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Industrial

The CHRO had a vision for what HR could be — and the courage to build it properly. We started with an HR Target Operating Model, working with the full international HR leadership team to design it and own it together. From there the work grew: supporting the global HR team on their own effectiveness, and now guiding the next phase of reshaping and implementation. The partnership has since expanded deep into the organisation — working with the COO and his leadership team, and the CTO leadership team, both moving towards a shared horizon.
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Medical · Hospital

Medical specialists are leaders — but not in the conventional sense. They lead through peer influence, informal authority, and the weight of their expertise. No direct reports, but enormous impact on colleagues, staff and patients every day. This programme — owned and driven by the medical doctors board — is built around that reality. How to show up with intention. How to communicate across specialisms. How to lead in a room of equals. In partnership with Jurko van Veenendaal.
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Biotech

When a new CEO arrived, the CHRO was ready to step up as a strategic partner to the ExCo. We built the approach, the content and the confidence together — so she could lead it herself. From there the work deepened: strategic sparring on the topics that matter most, individual support for her HR team, and now a full culture reinforcement roadmap for the next level of leaders and their teams below ExCo. She leads it. And she's always ready — supported by a team that's ready with her. Because you are only as successful as the people around you.
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Background

I understand the pressure you’re under.
I’ve sat close
to that table.

Before Fairview, I spent 15 years inside Philips Healthcare — from Global HR Manager to Director Business Transformation, Director Global Marketing, Senior Director Customer Service & Business Development, and ultimately as Senior Director Global Culture & Transformation, reporting into the Executive Committee.

600+ change leaders built and mobilised. Top-200 executives aligned during major strategic shifts. Between Philips and Fairview: Commercial Director at De Meeuw — a 30-person team, a near-bankruptcy, and a recovery that delivered double-digit growth. That’s where I learned that commercial accountability and culture change are not separate things.

Since founding Fairview in 2018, I have built a practice around long-term embedded partnerships — the kind where trust deepens over time and the work grows with it.

I bring all of that into every engagement. Not as nostalgia — as context. I know what it feels like to be responsible for outcomes, not just to advise on them.

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