About
Our team is made up of passionate professional coaches and trainers who have experienced a transformation process through walking.
After acareer of about twenty years in industry,finance or at the European Commission, they wish to share today the power of this unique educational tool.
They are all trained in techniques ofwalking facilitationand inindividual or team coaching, inmanagementand inleadershipas well as inpersonal development.
There is a before and an after a walk.This is what I am told and what I have personally experienced. On 6 March 2023, I set off from Namur on foot towards Assisi in Italy. Two thousand kilometres to gain perspective and take stock.
I am far from imagining what awaits me at the end of the road.
Stepping off the beaten path: in industry...
Chemical Engineer, for over twenty years, I have been managing large-scale projects in the food industry. What particularly excites me is daring tothink outside the box to find solutions beyond the obvious.; for example, inventing a new technology to allow for harvesting throughout the year instead of just 3 months a year.
What also drives me is tolead teams to take on challengeson particularly complex projects such as dismantling and then rebuilding a facility from the ground up, on the same site, in 9 months! Without calling on an external consultancy or a recruitment agency.
In parallel, I am training inmindfulnessbefore becoming an instructor myself; I am joining the Mankind Project, an organisation that helps men connect with their vulnerability and be authentic. I attend seminars and go on a fewpersonal development retreatsthat inspire me to manage teams.
... and in management
Little by little, I establish practices such as the "internal weather" before starting a meeting. From the outside, this may seem like "a waste of time", but I have experienced how muchlistening and sharing amplify energy, accountability, enthusiasm from everyone, and the effectiveness of the group.
I become aware ofthe power of a teamand I want to go further. I continue to train in HR and to implement a collective intelligence and listening approach. However, for such initiatives to work, it is essential to have the support and mandate of management.
Seated: from the external path to the internal journey
Since childhood,nature has been my second home,a territory of exploration and play. It soothes, it anchors, it enlightens. Walking has always been there, to help me surpass myself and learn humility in the face of the mountain, the forest. While walking, something gently unravels:the masks fall, the questions settle, reality reveals itself and meaning can breathe again.
On the way to Assisi, as the kilometres pass, I begin to see more clearly. My thought patterns are reorganising, certain certainties are being questioned.Movement, silence, contact with nature create a space I had forgotten - like a reunion after a long absence.
The impact of walking: from doing to being
I understand that walking is not just a physical act:it is a tool for slow transformation and gradual alignment.
Above all, it is an incredibly useful tool in the professional world: I realise that what walking brings me personally can alsobring a lot to teams and organisations: alignment, clarity, perspective, renewed creativity, more accurate communication. Everything we need daily to work better, decide better, collaborate better.
Today, I help companies integrate walking as a simple and powerful lever to transform their way of thinking and working - complementing this movement with facilitation tools and collective intelligence.
Because sometimes, all it takes is to go out for a walk for things to start moving again… both inside and outside.
Benjamin Limpens,
Founder of WalkUP
As Fred Kofman expresses in his book "The Conscious Enterprise", I am convinced"that it is more important, and much less recognised, to understand that the enterprise also needs collaborators with a high level of awareness. Companies that lack this will never achieve excellence and will not survive."
The WalkUP Team
Anne Lemaire
Pioneering authentic and shared leadership
Developing leaders, organisations, and teams has been Anne Lemaire's passion for over 30 years. She has pursued this mission for 20 years within international companies in the IT/Telecom sector, across 15 countries, as a Learning and Development manager and then as Head of HR Business Partners. Since 2011, she has worked as an independent coach and facilitator, specialising in leadership development and organisational development. She works with organisations such as Sioo, AMS, HEC Liège, and European institutions. Anne has a unique way of getting people moving, approaching learning in a holistic manner. Her deeply developed listening skills allow her to create the conditions conducive to exploration and learning. Over the years, she has integrated leadership development, systems thinking, meditation, walking, voice work, and singing into her support. These elements intertwine in her consulting practice as well as in her leadership programmes. Anne's support is creative, patient, and infused with compassion.
Irina Titei
Nature-Based Team Building Facilitator | Resilience, Leadership & Change Adaptation
A facilitator of conscious walks since 2020, Irina Titei supports teams and leaders through experiences that combine movement, reflection, and personal development. Before dedicating herself to this support, she worked for 16 years in various European institutions, notably at the European Commission, the European Parliament, and in an executive agency, within financial units. This experience allowed her to develop a deep understanding of the professional environment of institutions, the pressure of deadlines, stress management, and responsibilities in demanding contexts. Creator of the training "Walk & Stress Management" for the European Commission's Mental Health Days, she leads resilience workshops and leadership walks aimed at teams and professionals.
They inspire us and support us
Nikita Stampa
He published in 2023 with Walden & Whitman a memoir about his pilgrimage experience titled "Everything that Comes to You". Now retired from professional life, he dedicates himself to sharing his life experience and is preparing the organisation of a pilgrimage for Peace.
Dimitri Mertens
Facilitator of meaningful narratives
Trained as a lawyer, over the past three decades, I have been successively active in the academic world, at the bar, within the European Union, and as a co-founder of the consulting firm Climact. Passionate about issues of transition and crossing, today I mobilise what I have learned and what I continue to discover to facilitate the emergence of meaningful, clear, and enthusiastic narratives and the embedding of these narratives in concrete actions for the service of a common future.