Executive Coaching · Leadership Development
Karel Bakkes. Independent executive coach. 35 years at Deloitte. Working with senior leaders across Big 4 and strategy consulting firms, and global organisations of all kinds — wherever leaders are ready to do the harder work.
Explore the work
About
Most leadership development focuses on performance — skills, behaviors, strategies. It treats the inner life as a distraction from results. The work at Authentes inverts that. The premise is that inner peace, authentic connection, and sustainable high performance are not competing priorities. They are interdependent.
Karel Bakkes spent 35 years at Deloitte in consulting and senior leadership roles before leaving to build an independent coaching practice. He is certified in the full Hogan suite — HPI, HDS, MVPI, and Hogan 360 — and uses assessments not as diagnostic labels, but as mirrors. The coaching conversation creates the conditions for a leader to see themselves clearly, without judgment, and begin to choose differently.
The work spans Big 4 and strategy consulting firms, global corporations, media, retail, and beyond. The common thread is not the industry — it is the leader who is ready to look honestly at themselves and do something with what they find. Karel is based in Hội An, Vietnam.
Services
The engagements are designed for senior leaders who are ready for rigorous honesty and genuine follow-through — not coaching as a performance exercise.
One-to-one coaching grounded in Hogan assessments. The full suite — bright side, dark side, values, and 360 — surfaces the patterns that live just below a leader's awareness. Typically six sessions. The first unpacks the assessments and co-creates a development plan. The rest work it with rigor and honesty.
A one-day intensive for executives stepping into a major new role. Designed to accelerate the shift from what you know to who you need to become. Part reflection, part challenge, part strategic mapping. Not a workshop — a conversation with real stakes.
PLHP-based workshops for intact leadership teams. The aim is to move beyond performance mechanics — the things teams do — toward genuine cohesion — who they are to each other. The work creates conditions for trust that doesn't require a team-building exercise to maintain.
Two to three days away from the machine. Designed for senior leaders who are performing well on the outside and quietly running on empty on the inside. The retreat creates structured space — for reflection, for honest conversation, for remembering what actually matters. Not a luxury event. A necessary pause, deliberately designed.
"Being fully human is the performance advantage, not its opposite."
The PLHP Framework · Karel Bakkes
Also
Personal site
Writing, thinking, and the intellectual frameworks behind the work — including Prompted, the Prompt Matrix, and the PLHP philosophy.
Leadership Program
A leadership program for the age of AI. Built around the qualities that make humans irreplaceable — presence, empathy, judgment, relational depth. Currently in development with Deloitte University.
Get in touch
The best conversations begin with curiosity, not a brief. Reach out and we'll take it from there.
karelbakkes@authentes.com