Vanessa Defournier

I'm Vanessa Defournier, a global leadership coach and facilitator based in Morocco, working worldwide.
I've spent over 20 years helping people and teams connect more deeply — with themselves, with each other, and with what they're actually here to do. I've lived and worked in 10 countries, coached in four languages, and held space for leaders navigating some of the most demanding environments on the planet: from McKinsey consulting rooms to international development institutions tackling climate, inequality, and systemic change.
What draws me to this work isn't the frameworks — it's the moment when something shifts. When a team that was talking past each other suddenly starts listening. When a leader drops the performance and gets honest. When a person realises they already knew what they needed to do, they just hadn't let themselves see it yet.
My style is warm, direct, and deeply human. I create experiences that feel safe enough to be real and engaging enough to matter. People often tell me they came in expecting a workshop and left feeling something more like a reckoning — in the best possible sense.
I bring cultural fluency, emotional depth, and a genuine love for the complexity of people. Whether I'm working in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, the invitation is always the same: show up as you are, and let's do something meaningful with that.