About us

Of course, we’d love to meet you in person for a cuppa and a chat. In the meantime, here’s your digital look at the faces and stories behind CK Collective.

The Founders

Conny Kausch

Senior Executive Coach and Consultant

When it comes to leadership, Conny has walked the talk. After serving as a Managing Director/CEO of international hotels for over two decades, she started her coaching and consulting business in 2005, empowering leaders & their teams to face turbulent times head-on. Since then, she has fine-tuned her methodological toolkit and embraced the psychodynamic approach she learnt at INSEAD with Manfred Kets de Vries. Conny brings to each coaching challenge an invigorating can-do attitude as well as non-judgmental patience, deep insight and resourcefulness forged from real experience.

You’ll especially love working with Conny if:

You’re a C-level executive who’d love to speak with someone who knows what it’s like at the top – thin air and all
You’re a woman looking to build confidence and a sense of agency in business scenarios as much as your private life
You’re in need of someone to help you transform ideas, visions and intentions into meaningful actions

Elsa Milanesio (on maternity leave)

Coach and Communications Trainer

Elsa is an observer, a seeker, and an idealist, who sees both the big picture and all the small hidden details. She’s as much an empath as she is an organisational genius who excels in setting up and running bespoke coaching scenarios. Having worked across three continents, Elsa is keenly attuned to intercultural issues – and knows how to harness these to improve communication in both business and personal settings. As a coach, she prides herself on being able to provide a safe, non-judgmental space for anyone, no matter their challenge.atmosphere of psychological safety.

You’ll especially love working with Elsa if:

You’re a perfectionist who’d love to find a better equilibrium
You want someone who’s deeply committed to helping you turn (perceived) weakness into opportunity
You want someone who gets that the best careers aren’t always built on a straight trajectory

The Associates

Luisa Zielinski
Coach, Brand & Thought Leadership Expert

With a winning combination of high IQ/EQ, Luisa moves and shakes the movers and shakers. Thanks to her experience in behavioural psychology and psychodynamic coaching methods as well as plenty of workshop-savvy gained in her work with leading Berlin agencies and her own clients world-wide, Luisa knows how to listen deep and ask the right questions – turning understanding into transformation. Relentlessly creative, inquisitive and a true polymath, Luisa is also an expert in brand/vision building as well as thought leadership. With an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, she’s always got an article or study up her sleeve, ready to back up intuition and insight with hard science! (Or a Or literary regooferences dand good memes!)

You’ll especially love working with Luisa if:

You love working with bright, buzzing, sharp minds
You are LGBTQI* and/or neurodiverseergent – Luisa is both (and a big nerd to boot)
You want a real ride-or-die for your expertise building and thought leadership journey

Dr. Michael Theim

Senior Executive Mentor & Consultant

Having spent much of his career advising on major real estate projects and at the helm of one of Germany’s largest hotel chains, Mike is an experienced mentor and consultant. Mastering complex stakeholder scenarios and dealing with very large numbers? That’s second nature to Mike, and he’d love to help you get there, too. He’s completely solution-focussed and brings an air of calm and trust even into tense business situations. He fuses the analytical thinking of a trained lawyer with genuine enthusiasm, humility and curiosity. With Mike, you can always count on an out-of-the-box solution fostered in an atmosphere of psychological safety.

You’ll especially love working with Michael if:

You’re an ambitious, driven entrepreneur in need of someone to help you through the upheavals of business
You’re looking for a sounding board in all things strategy, budget and legal
You need someone who can bring some “financial creativity” to the table