René Molenkamp
René holds space for individuals, teams and groups as an executive coach, supervisor, trainer and teacher, group relations practitioner and retreat director.
He designs and delivers intensive, experiential leadership development programs and retreats for (international) corporations, NGO’s, non-profit organizations and universities. He is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a Board Certified Executive and Leadership Coach, as well as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor.
Dr. Molenkamp has 20 years of coaching experience of individuals and teams. Among his clients are executives, boards and managers at all levels. René focuses particularly on helping individuals and groups to explore the deeper dimensions of their own lived leadership practices, especially elements that are often unexamined and unconscious. He helps people be more successful in leading and managing in their role and he applies the PRO model: examining the interdependence between person, role and organization.
René teaches in the Leadership Studies Department at the University of San Diego, where he is the Academic Director of the EdD in Organizational Leadership. His courses focus on leadership, leadership coaching, human relations, adult development, and organizational and group dynamics. His expertise in working with groups has resulted in clients, such as the School of Management at Yale University, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Judge Business School at Cambridge University, Copenhagen Business School and Insead in France.
René is a founding member and executive director of Group Relations International and Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems. He was Training Director and a Senior Fellow at the James MacGregor Burns academy of Leadership, University of Maryland, and served as first program director of the Howard Peters Rawlings Fellowship Program in Public Leadership. He was also on the faculty of the American University/National Training Laboratory master’s program. Through these and other organizations, René had directed scores of group relations conferences and related intensive leadership experiences in the United States and Europe. He has written articles and developed exercises related to group dynamics, coaching and personal development.
René did undergraduate studies in economics and law in the Netherlands and in philosophy in Germany. He received his Master of Divinity degree of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and his PhD from Loyola University Maryland. A former Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, he uses these previous professional roles to inform his work as an international leadership consultant and executive coach.
René holds Dutch and American citizenship. After living in several European countries, he moved to the United States. He now lives with his partner and their two sons in San Diego.
