Résumé

Hello, I’m Janel Van Beek. I dba Francie Van Wirkus LLC.

I am a certified master coach. I intellectually help people lead and create great teams, and ship great products and experiences. I’m a strategic thinker with the uncommon ability to also do the work. I am the co-founder of Relume, a fuzzy, emerging leadership and personal development project.
I am a dual-certified yoga instructor for group and private classes, and I am a 9X Ironman triathlon finisher. Each day, I aim to hang around with people who do epic sh*t.

Summary

Most recently, Janel was a digital performance consultant at Globant. There she worked with technology and product client leaders to deeply understand their software delivery capabilities through a data product and interviews, and then improve them. Janel partnered with Globant’s internal product area to design, develop and deliver product training and a technical product briefing class. The drive to deliver these product benefitted clients and internal stakeholders. This work served as a lever for one particular engagement, and also to lift Globant’s internal product capabilities. Janel also designed and delivered a massive training document for Globant’s staff-aug Agile teams (pods) and account leaders. This document served as the source for other training assets, including videos, internal webinars, and virtual classes on an LMS. Janel was laid off in July 2023.

Prior to working at Globant, Janel was an Agile and product coach with Centric Consulting. Janel served as SAFe SPC and co-lead of a transformation at a private jet company. As transformation lead, Janel consulted and coached the client to organize their organization change management vision and tactics and involve their product teams in the change. She and her co-lead helped the client realize that they needed a better-defined change vision and strategy, and involve more people to help lead the way. The client made some radical changes that helped them better-focus on the change they wanted and needed. Janel helped drive standard internal processes and continuous learning and improvement; one of the outcomes was an internal playbook.

Prior to working at Centric Consulting, Janel worked as a temporary program and product consultant with Amplify Consulting Partners. Within the tech center of a large, global fitness clothing retailer, Janel helped organize and coach to the activities within a discovery process. Janel also coached Scrum Masters in the program, which helped them better focus their time and efforts on the highest value work, and improved relations with the product areas.

Prior to working at Amplify Consulting Partners, Janel was a business agility enablement manager with Accenture SolutionsIQ. Janel worked with product and technology leaders at several companies with successful outcomes of improved communication and more strategic planning. Janel was part of a team serving the infrastructure area of a large, global retailer. Through their coaching and consulting, this area was able to improve the flow of their work, and their leader was now able to see the work, and have more strategic decision making conversations with the company’s C-Suite leaders. Janel also served as a coaching and consulting Community of Practice convener, and in 2020, was an emotional support coach. As a CoP convener Janel drove standardization and continuous improvement processes. Also in 2020, Janel was an SME for a massive Agile and Lean training project, partnering with Accenture training teams and vendor Pluralsight. Janel mentored establishing coaches.

Prior to working at Accenture SolutionsIQ, Janel was a transformation consultant and product coach through her company, Francie Van Wirkus LLC. Janel helped the tech teams of a large, global financial services company reduce handoffs and improve flow of work in a specific technology area, as well as begin a leadership development effort for this area’s management. Janel helped the product managers, product owner, and Scrum Masters work through a large impediment that improved the product function and interpersonal relationships within the area. Janel also coached the director of the area and helped him design his promotion presentation to VP (he got the job!). Janel also designed a two-day offsite leadership event for the new VP to bond with his direct reports.

Prior to working as a private consultant, Janel was a people manager of an organization change team within a technology area at Northwestern Mutual. Through career development and mentoring, Janel helped the team raise their skills and position in the department from order-taker to OCM consultants. Janel drove the standardization of team work processes and established continuous improvement practices. Janel also coached 10 RTEs who worked in this area, helping them focus on what was in their control, and then drive to organize for impediments beyond their control.

Prior to being an OCM people manager, Janel was a transformation lead (and Sr Agile Coach) and OCM lead at Northwestern Mutual. Over five years, Janel served as an OCM lead of an enterprise-wide transformation and many other roles to drive change. With empathy and professionalism, Janel coached many product owners, worked as a SAFe SPC (training and consulting), and coached many leaders and Scrum Masters. Janel also served as a Scrum Master for the Agile enablement team. Janel helped make many OCM breakthroughs to promote the success stories of many teams and employees who made improvements and effected change. Janel was co-designer of a SAFe dojo, and curriculum designer. She served as dojo sensei and mentored many establishing coaches in various parts of their career journey.

Prior to being a transformation and OCM lead, Janel served as an OCM lead in the HR area of technology at Northwestern Mutual. Through OCM activities, mentoring and coaching, Janel helped successfully drive the transition a large department through a massive HR and job description change. Janel also coached managers to new leader behaviors that supported the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009. She trained and mentored other employees.

Prior to being an OCM lead in HR tech, Janel was a training lead in field training and development at Northwestern Mutual. As an instructional designer, she designed, developed, and delivered various investment and advanced planning training assets and events. She worked to drive change on enterprise-level projects, with multiple stakeholders. She trained other employees and mentored them on the job.

In other past roles, Janel served as a people manager of a call center and of a marketing division; she also served as a life risk underwriter in a Large Case Division, where she worked on large life insurance cases with impeccable customer service, and mentored junior underwriters.