Some people walk into a room and immediately see how everything connects. Rashied Ilahi is one of those people - except he does not just see the connections, but he builds, nurtures, and turns them into relationships that last.
Born in Suriname and raised in the Netherlands, Rashied grew up watching his father run a thriving business while building a meaningful life. That early image of his father -the entrepreneur who leads with both ambition and integrity- is what shaped him and the burning desire in his heart to help people and companies make a difference in the world.
His path took him through pastoral works spanning multiple cultures and countries, through business ventures in new environments, through communities of people trying to find their footing in places that did not always make room for them. What he brought to every one of those spaces was the same: the ability to see people, understand where they come from, and help them find where they belong.
At Centered People, Rashied expands reach, builds alliances, and opens doors that others do not even know exist. His network is a living ecosystem built on genuine trust. When Rashied makes an introduction, both sides benefit from it
He is not interested in growth for growth's sake. He is interested in growth that builds lives and organizations where people feel they truly belong and want to be part of..
Co-Founder
Stephany Bernabela
The Strategist · Architect of Structure
Every organization needs someone who can hold the big picture and the fine detail at the same time, who can see where a business is headed and build the people structure strong enough to carry it there. At Centered People, that is Stephany Bernabela.
With over 18 years of international experience at the intersection of business strategy and human transformation, Stephany leads the strategic and operational core of Centered People: People Strategy, business alignment, organizational design, leadership development, and the hiring and management of the talent that helps our clients exceed what they thought was possible.
Where others see HR as administration, Stephany sees it as architecture. She designs the systems, workforce planning, performance frameworks, organizational structures, compensation models, that allow a growing company to scale without losing itself. And she does it by staying close to the business reality, not just the org chart: understanding what a CEO actually needs from their leadership team, what a CHRO is up against, what a founder needs to hear before they're ready to hear it.
This is also where Stephany's gift for connection comes alive. She doesn't just design strategy from behind a desk, she builds it alongside the people who will carry it. In every engagement, she brings the lived experience of having sat where her clients sit: managing teams, navigating growth, hiring under pressure, and making decisions that affect real people's lives. That experience is what allows her to translate complex organizational challenges into frameworks that leaders and teams can actually use, and to build the kind of trust with clients that turns a consulting engagement into a genuine partnership.
Caribbean-Dutch by roots and based in Germany, working fluently across Dutch, English, and Spanish, Stephany brings cultural intelligence to every room she enters, a quality that has become essential as Centered People works across borders, industries, and leadership styles. She partners with executives, founders, and HR leaders across healthcare, ICT, professional services, and social impact organizations, helping them align people, culture, and strategy in a way that holds up under real-world pressure.
Stephany is driven by a deeper calling: to equip leaders and professionals to build organizations that are both strategically sound and genuinely human. She believes that clarity is a form of care that giving a leader, a team, or an organization the structure they need to succeed is one of the most respectful things you can do for them.
Cristina Popescu is a trained psychologist, coach, trainer, and speaker who helps professionals, leaders, and organizations pursue performance from a holistic perspective. Building a person and teams from the inside out, and honoring the full weight of past experience and cultural identity.
When Cristina moved from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands, she arrived with talent, drive, and a genuine desire to contribute. What she found was a world with its own invisible rules and expectations never written down but enforced in silence, and a persistent feeling that no matter how capable she was, something about being an expat made full belonging feel just out of reach.
She navigated it, grew into it, but she never forgot what the cost was, and she never stopped thinking about the millions of other expats, migrants, and refugees navigating the same thing.
Cristina is a trauma coach and culture strategist who has built her career on a conviction the business world is still afraid to say out loud: organizations carry and make decisions out of trauma, teams hold in hurt, and leaders live with wounds they never had space to process. And until those things are named and addressed, no amount of strategy, structure, or culture initiatives will deliver what they promise.
She works with particular focus alongside Eastern Europeans building careers in Western Europe - a community she knows intimately, who bring extraordinary competence and resilience to the organizations they join, and who are too often asked to shrink their identity in order to fit in. Her work helps the people she works with understand that their culture is not a liability but a strength that those around them may not yet know how to see.
Cristina is the heart of Centered People. She brings the depth, the empathy, and the courage to go to the places in an organization where other consultants do not look. She holds space for what is difficult, names what is uncomfortable but true, and helps leaders and teams move from reactive patterns that drain organizations to collaborative, human-centered ones where people genuinely want to show up
Her dream is to create workplaces where past cultural trauma and power dynamics have no place. Organizations where people work from a genuine sense of safety, respect, and shared purpose. Environments that are not just tolerant of diversity, but intentionally made better by it.