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THE JOURNAL

Perspectives on
human organizational
health.

Practical tools, deep dives, and strategic briefs for leaders building the organizations of tomorrow.

  • Cristina Popescu
  • January 27th, 2026

What Makes Start-Ups Work? Identity Comes Before Ideas

Written by our co-founder Stephany Bernabela There is a quiet moment that almost every founder, manager, or leader reaches, but rarely does anyone talk about. From the outside, everything looks right. The ideas are solid. The plans are well-written, with enough detail that can sell to any investor at any time. The opportunity is real […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • January 20th, 2026

New Season , New Boundaries: Why Limits Create Growth And Help You Stay Authentic

Every organization, just like a person, a family, or a community, needs boundaries and healthy limits to grow. The bigger the company, the greater the need for limits, especially as the organization grows. Written by Cristina Popescu “Boundaries are the property line that tells others where you end, and they start, and tells you where […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • January 13th, 2026

Make Stability your Startup’s Superpower

By Rashied Ilahi, Co-ownerCentered People We love talking about vision, speed, disruption, and growth, yet almost never about stability And yet, stability is where everything truly starts. I didn’t learn this from books. I learned it the hard way. What Building Centered People Taught Me When we fi the Centered People, we didn’t lack ideas.We […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • January 6th, 2026

Why Every New Beginning Requires an Inner Reset First

Why Every New Beginning Requires an Inner Reset First Written by Ana-Maria van der Salm “Sometimes the hardest part of starting over isn’t the change, it’s realizing you’ve outgrown who you used to be.” Before you start something new, start with yourself. Looking back on my recent years in the Netherlands, after living in the […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • December 29th, 2025

Family & Business: The Strategy Every Leader Needs

By Stephany Bernabela, Co-Founder of Centered People People often ask me, “Steph, how do I build a successful business without burning out?”My answer is always the same: start at home. Not because your private life belongs in every meeting, but because your family, culture, and early experiences shape the leader you are today. Whether you […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • December 1st, 2025

Leadership starts from home and expands at work

Whatever you do, do not separate family from leadership and your work. Especially when you go up the ladder in your career. Because the higher you go, the lonelier it gets. And trust me when I say that lonely people do not last long in leading positions.  I’ve been curious about a phenomenon lately, and […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • November 24th, 2025

Healthy Leaders Build Healthy Teams

Have you ever noticed how many books are available on leadership? A 2015 estimate found over 57,136 leadership books on Amazon alone. That is 10 years ago. I could not find a new statistic yet. Can you imagine how much information we have on leadership, and yet, many organizations struggle with leadership? Leadership is so […]

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  • Cristina Popescu
  • November 13th, 2025

Why Genuine Care Builds Lasting Impact

“A leader’s influence begins the moment people know you truly care. Skill may impress them, but care is what gives you access to their heart.” For a long time, I moved through my days with a focus on tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. I cared, of course, but most of my energy went into getting things […]

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Healthy Leaders Build Healthy Teams

Cristina Popescu November 24, 2025
Have you ever noticed how many books are available on leadership? A 2015 estimate found over 57,136 leadership books on Amazon alone. That is 10 years ago. I could not…
Read ->
rashied close up

Why Genuine Care Builds Lasting Impact

Cristina Popescu November 13, 2025
“A leader’s influence begins the moment people know you truly care. Skill may impress them, but care is what gives you access to their heart.” For a long time, I…
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How to Hire the Right People

Cristina Popescu June 19, 2025
Did you know that the cost of a bad hire in the Netherlands can reach up to €20,000—double that of their first-year salary? Hiring the wrong person can lead to…
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Cristina Popescu

Founder | The Changemaker | Trauma Healer | Culture Shaper | The Heart Of The Practice
Christina Headshot
When Cristina moved from Romania 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, a workplace culture that communicated in subtleties she hadn't been taught to read, expectations that were never written down but somehow always enforced, and a persistent feeling that no matter how capable she was, something about where she came from made full belonging feel just out of reach.

She navigated it and grew in her ability to find her way. But she never forgot what it cost, and she never stopped thinking about all the other people like her who are navigating the same thing, often alone, without language for what they were experiencing, and being told that the discomfort was their problem to solve.
She knows that if organizations are taught what their part is in creating space for people like her, both sides win.

And that became her calling: to translate culture, bridge generational gaps, and address how trauma from the past and from migration affects business and workplaces, so people can grow together and contribute to the company's success.

Cristina is a trauma coach and culture strategist who has built her practice on a conviction that most of the corporate world is still afraid to say out loud: organizations carry trauma. Teams carry hurt. Leaders carry wounds they never had space to process. And until those things are named and healed, no amount of strategy, structure, or culture initiative will make the difference it promises to make.
She brings trauma coaching into business, not as a soft peripheral offering, but as a foundational one. Because if we want better organizations, we have to be willing to look at what is actually happening inside them. The power dynamics that masquerade as 'culture'. The unspoken hierarchies that make some people feel permanently less-than. The past hurts that replay in every performance review, every conflict, every moment when someone decides it is safer to stay quiet.

Cristina's focus is particularly fierce when it comes to cultural identity in the workplace. She works with Eastern Europeans 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 says: no. Your culture is not a liability. It is a strength that the people around you may not yet know how to see. And it is our job - as consultants, as leaders, as colleagues - to build workplaces that can hold the full range of who people are.

As a founder of Centered People, Cristina is the heart. She brings the depth, the empathy, and the courage to go to the places in an organization where other consultants don't look. She holds space for emotions and for what is difficult to address. She names what is true and helps leaders and teams move from the reactive, fear-driven reactions that drain organizations to the collaborative, compassionate ones that allow real performance and sustainable growth.

Her dream is specific and bold: To change the world by healing one company at a time!

Organizations where people operate from a genuine sense of safety, respect, and shared purpose. Environments that don't just tolerate diversity, but are genuinely made better by it.

Rashied Ilahi

Co-Founder | The Connector | Network Builder | Alliance Maker | Bridge Between Worlds
Rashied Ilahi
Some people walk into a room and immediately know how everything connects. Rashied Ilahi is one of those people, except he doesn't just see the connections. He builds them, nurtures them, and turns them into something that lasts long after the meeting ends.

Born in Suriname and raised in the Netherlands, Rashied grew up watching his father do something quietly extraordinary: run a thriving business while building a meaningful life. That early image - the entrepreneur who leads with both ambition and integrity - never left him. It became the blueprint.
His path took him through pastorships spanning multiple cultures and countries, through business ventures launched in new cities, through communities of people who were trying to find their footing in environments that didn't always make room for them. What he brought to every one of those spaces was the same: the ability to see people clearly, to understand where they come from, and to help them find where they belong.

That gift is not accidental. It is forged from lived experience. Rashied knows what it means to navigate cultural complexity, to be the one in the room whose background isn't reflected in the walls, the language, or the unspoken rules. And because he knows it, he has made it his work to change it.

At Centered People, Rashied expands reach, builds alliances, and opens doors that other people don't even know exist. His network is a living ecosystem of relationships built on genuine trust and mutual respect. When Rashied makes an introduction, both sides feel it.
His coaching and leadership work is rooted in a single conviction: true growth happens when people are seen for who they are, not just what they produce. He works with individuals and teams to find clarity, confidence, and a genuine sense of belonging, especially in environments where those things don't come easy.

There is a warmth to the way Rashied works that disarms people. He brings ease to complex conversations, joy to difficult moments, and meaning to what can feel like ordinary work. Leaders who work with him often say the same thing: he has a way of making you feel that your growth matters to him personally. Because it does.
He is not interested in growth for growth's sake. He is interested in growth that builds lives, organizations where people don't just perform, but belong. Businesses that create impact in the communities they touch. Leaders who understand that how they lead is inseparable from who they are.

Stephany Bernabela

Co-Founder | Strategist | Trainer & Coach
steph portrait
Stephany Bernabela is a strategist, trainer, and coach who helps professionals, leaders, and organizations move forward with clarity, purpose, and healthy performance.

With nearly two decades of experience in recruitment, HR strategy, and leadership development, she has supported organizations across healthcare, social services, and the SME sector in building strong teams, developing leadership, and navigating complex organizational challenges. Stephany is known for her ability to bring structure where complexity exists and to translate vision into practical frameworks that help people and organizations grow.
She is the co-founder of Centered People, a consultancy focused on building healthy and future-ready organizations, and ALTERNATIVs, a holistic leadership and wellbeing program that strengthens the human foundations of performance.

As a trainer and coach, Stephany equips leaders and teams to develop resilient leadership, healthy cultures, and sustainable growth. Her work combines strategic thinking with deep care for people, helping organizations align performance with wellbeing.

At the heart of Stephany’s leadership is a strong sense of calling in the marketplace. She sees business and leadership as spaces where people can discover purpose, develop their gifts, and contribute to meaningful impact in society. Inspired by Kingdom principles of stewardship, integrity, and service, she is passionate about equipping professionals and leaders to lead with wisdom, responsibility, and vision.

Stephany’s Caribbean-Dutch roots, entrepreneurial spirit, and relational leadership style shape a unique approach where strategy, people, and purpose come together.

Her mission is simple:
to help individuals, teams, and organizations grow with clarity, lead with integrity, and build workplaces where both people and performance flourish.
Stephany Bernabela is a strategist, trainer, and coach who helps professionals, leaders, and organizations move forward with clarity, purpose, and healthy performance.

With nearly two decades of experience in recruitment, HR strategy, and leadership development, she has supported organizations across healthcare, social services, and the SME sector in building strong teams, developing leadership, and navigating complex organizational challenges. Stephany is known for her ability to bring structure where complexity exists and to translate vision into practical frameworks that help people and organizations grow.

She is the co-founder of Centered People, a consultancy focused on building healthy and future-ready organizations, and ALTERNATIVs, a holistic leadership and wellbeing program that strengthens the human foundations of performance.

As a trainer and coach, Stephany equips leaders and teams to develop resilient leadership, healthy cultures, and sustainable growth. Her work combines strategic thinking with deep care for people, helping organizations align performance with wellbeing.

At the heart of Stephany’s leadership is a strong sense of calling in the marketplace. She sees business and leadership as spaces where people can discover purpose, develop their gifts, and contribute to meaningful impact in society. Inspired by Kingdom principles of stewardship, integrity, and service, she is passionate about equipping professionals and leaders to lead with wisdom, responsibility, and vision.

Stephany’s Caribbean-Dutch roots, entrepreneurial spirit, and relational leadership style shape a unique approach where strategy, people, and purpose come together.

Her mission is simple:
to help individuals, teams, and organizations grow with clarity, lead with integrity, and build workplaces where both people and performance flourish.