Caroline Vanovermeire

NED at Biolizard; Global Director of Talent, Leadership and Organisational Development at dentsu; Founder at Effra Consult

Caroline Vanovermeire has thus far spent half of her career in consultancy/advisory roles and half in corporate roles, with an entrepreneurial spirit as a golden threat throughout.  

Most recently she was the Global Director of Talent, Leadership and Organisational Development at dentsu, a 5.5 billion, 65000 strong and Tokyo Stock exchange listed Marketing Services and Solutions Company across media, digital and creative, who partners with brands to achieve meaningful progress as a force for growth and good.  

She is the founder of Effra Consult, a consortium of consultants (“Effragettes”) on a mission to boost business performance through all things people. They partner to address inflexion points due to growth and/or disruption. Typical activities are related to Culture Shaping, Organisational Effectiveness, Talent Management, Leadership, Assessment and Development.  

In addition, she is a NED and Remco Chair for Biolizard, an agile data science consulting company with expertise in scientific data analysis, data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence.  

She has mentored start-ups in the Fintech industry and is currently advising CEOs of mature scale ups on their growth trajectory.  

Caroline was previously the Global Head of Organisational Development for all Support functions at Barclays and a Principal at Heidrick & Struggles’ Global Leadership Advisory practice. Caroline came to London 20 years ago at the request of her first employer to put Ernst & Young, later rebranded into Hudson, on the map in the UK&I as a service provider for talent management, assessment and development.  

Caroline is a trained Psychologist and Coach, accredited in various psychometric tools linked to her level A&B BPS qualification. She also has a Masters in Human Resources management. She was invited to Harvard by Prof. Groysberg to attend the program Driving Performance through Talent Management. Her best insights, however, come from her day-to-day personal interactions, being with people. She is a published author with a new book coming out in March 2024 covering “attraction and retention of diverse talents in law firms” 

In her free time, Caroline is a trustee for the Regenboogschool, a charity that offers Cultural, Inclusivity and Dutch language education for 4-18 year olds, as well as a key supporter of Sense, a charity for deaf blind people, and has been a proud member of their Corporate Fundraising board since 2011. She has also volunteered for the Media Trust.  

She also likes to cook and never sticks to a recipe so all dishes remain "unique" but for one thing: she has a weakness for using the Belgian beers of her native country as a key ingredient. Caroline is married to Philip and mum of Elliot who is teaching her how to flick a ball like Messi.