Profile Klaus-Peter Esser

Core competencies: leadership training, strategy development, team coaching, individual coaching

For over 10 years, Klaus-Peter Esser has been successful as a trainer and coach; for a few years now, he has been training and instructing consultants and trainers. His focus is on working with people – not just in organisations. As trainer and coach, he supports individuals or teams in processes of change.

His work benefits from almost 20 years of experience, from 1975 to 1994, in executive positions in German and international industry, where he had been a successful manager and chief executive officer. His understanding of entrepreneurship has been influenced by his involvement in the family owned business at an early stage in his career. After completing his studies and gaining 5 years of experience in his parents’ company, he proceeded to join an internationally operating large American automotive supplier in 1980, where he worked for 14 years until 1994.

The radical transition from CEO to freelance trainer in 1994 came out of an urge to give his life new direction and to share his experience in life and leadership while working with others. He has complemented his expertise in management and leadership by successfully completing additional education and training programmes in the fields of training, coaching, supervision and psychology.

Motivated by his own eventful life course, he feels special empathy for and seeks to support people in pursuit of discovering or rediscovering what they deem most appropriate to their lives. In his view, successfully combining aspects of personality, of emotion and heart with so-called “hard facts” is of utmost importance. Thinking in integrative terms of “one as well as the other”, rather than in exclusive terms of “either – or” represents an important element in his personal creed.

Klaus-Peter Esser offers training in German and English. He also speaks French and Spanish.

He is also an enthusiastic skipper and yachtsman and offers individual coaching in combination with spending a vacation at his residence on Corfu, Greece to interested individuals and executives.

He has been affiliated with is wife, Barbara, since 1968. Apart from their work, they both share their love for their three children and their joyful Golden Retriever.

Personal information

Date of birth:
02.03.1950

Family status:
married, 3 children

Educational background:

• Abitur (high school diploma) 1970
• University degree in business administration at Humboldt University, Münster in 1975
• TRW Management Leadership Programme
• Strategic Business Planning (Michael Porter, Harvard)
• “Train the Trainer” training programmes (Dr. Haug, Obrecht, Mader)
• Curriculum of systemic consultation (Bernd Schmidt, Institut für system. Beratung Wiesloch)
• Curriculum coaching (Hans Jellouscheck, Professio)
• Systemic supervision (Rolf Balling, Professio)
• Consulting (G. Rohwoldt)
• Various personality and self-awareness trainings (e.g., Block 1+2, Quadrinity Process, communication and shaping relationships, Vision Quest, ...)

Professional experience

• 1975, sales and distribution, Klaus Esser KG
• 1976 – 79, export manager, Klaus Esser KG
• 1979 – 80, chief executive officer, Esser France, Paris
• 1980 – 94, TRW Repa, Alfdorf, initially as assistant to management
• 1982 – 88, organisation of TRW Repa’s Europe-wide network of companies, erection of plants in Spain, France and Italy
• 1986 – 94, was granted full power of attorney and included on the management board at TRW Repa, responsible for the European plants
• 1988 – 90, begin of a large two-year TQM project at TRW Repa, project supervisor)
• 1991 – 94, member of the Global Seat Belt Councils, TRW (ditto for airbags)
• Since 1994, freelance trainer and coach
• Since 1994, member of the ChangePartner network of consultants and trainers

Consulting and Training experience

• Individual coaching for executives
• Coaching in support of management teams and individuals experiencing change
• Instruction of consultants, development of consultation skills and social competence
• Qualification of internal and external trainers for training executives
• Leadership training for top and middle level management
• Next-generation management training
• Project supervisor training
• Team development and team training
• Design and realisation of training programmes for large groups
• Training for personality development

Languages

• German, English, French