Charles van Commenee

Book Charles van Commenee for your next event

• Charles van Commenee is a succesful and respected coach for teams both in the Netherlands and UK. His keynotes on performance, succes and motivation are illustated with examples from his personal carreer as coach and head of performance.
• Being one of the most respected athletics coaches in the world and he is the Head Coach of UK Athletics. Dubbed the ‘‘Volcano’’, the disciplinarian Dutchman pushes his athletes to the limit and makes a habit of exceeding targets.
• If team performance is an issue or your group simply needs a boost, Charles van Commenee is the perfect choice. He brings the best out in people and inspires success.

Charles is ideal for Senior Leadership Conferences because he challenges delegates to really push themselves to be the best that they can possibly be. He is meticulous in the detail, planning and preparation that is required for a team to perform at the very highest level. In his capacity as Chef de Mission for the Netherlands Olympic Team in Beijing, Charles gained valuable experience in managing a team of 400 people while the nation was watching. His time dealing with Head Coaches and Chairman’s/CEO’s of the federations during his four years tenure was another valuable experience. Today he is one of the world’s leading experts on Performance Management. During his presentation he offers delegates simple strategies and ideas to get the best out of their people in their own environment.

In 1994 Charles van Commenee started working with British athlete Denise Lewis. Under Charles, Denise would go on to become champion at both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships in 1998 before taking a silver medal at the 1999 World Championships. At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Denise took gold to become Olympic Champion. She put much of her success and ‘drive to win’ down to the fact that Charles had been so focused.

Following his continued success with many of Britain’s top athletes, Charles was in 2004 considered for the position of UK Athletics head of performance. Ultimately however, Charles decided to leave the UK in favour of becoming Performance Director of the Netherlands Olympic Committee . In 2009, after another successful period in the Netherlands, where he lead the nation to their second-highest ever Olympic medal tally at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Charles van Commenee returned to the UK to take up the position of head coach.