Coaching · Workshops · KeynotesEst. 2015

Leadership coach & keynote speaker

Lead the room without raising your voice.

Clara Jensen, a woman in her late forties with grey-streaked hair pinned up, sitting on a wooden stool in a cream jumpsuit and smiling off to one side
Portrait Clara in her studio in Frederiksberg, autumn 2026.

Clara Jensen coaches founders and senior teams through the conversations that decide a company: the first layoff, the reorg, the board meeting that goes sideways. Fourteen years running operations taught her what most leadership books leave out.

Start a conversation See the three programs
Coaching since
2015, formerly a COO
On stage
212 talks in 31 cities
Next 1:1 opening
January 2027, two places

02As heard at

Two hundred and twelve rooms, give or take.

212

talks since 2015, in 31 cities and 9 countries. Average organiser rating: 4.9 out of 5.

  1. 2026Nordic Leadership SummitCopenhagen · Opening keynote“The four-second pause”
  2. 2026Founders’ WeekStockholm · Keynote“Decide, then explain”
  3. 2025The People ConferenceAmsterdam · Masterclass“Feedback that lands”
  4. 2025Scale-Up ForumBerlin · Fireside chat“The second-year founder”
  5. 2025Women in OperationsLondon · Keynote“Quiet authority”
  6. 2024Danish HR DaysAarhus · Closing keynote“Reorgs people survive”
  7. 2024Design Leadership WeekOslo · Workshop“Running the room”

Also at leadership off-sites for Søholm Foods, Nord Kaffe, Fjordline Health and about thirty other companies that would rather we didn’t print their names.

03The long version

Fourteen years running operations. Then the work she’d been doing in corridors all along.

Profile · 4 minute read

A rust-coloured notebook and a pen beside a cup of black coffee on a round wooden table, striped with low morning sun
Every first session starts the same way: a blank notebook, a pot of coffee and the question, “What aren’t you saying?”

Clara Jensen joined Halden, the Danish furniture maker, at twenty-four, on the warehouse floor in Aarhus. She left fourteen years later as chief operating officer, having run four restructurings, opened plants in Kaunas and Porto and sat through what she estimates were nine thousand meetings. “Most of them,” she says, “were about something other than what was on the agenda.”

In 2015 she left to do full time what she had been doing in corridors for a decade: helping capable people say the difficult thing, and say it well. She trained as a coach, studied group dynamics in London and opened a small studio above a bakery in Frederiksberg, with two armchairs, a long oak table and a window that faces the wrong way for afternoon light.

Today she coaches about twenty leaders a year one to one, runs workshops for leadership teams across Europe and gives around forty talks. Her clients mostly run companies of 80 to 2,000 people: the size where charm stops scaling, and the conversations you avoid start to cost money.

“I don’t fix people. I fix the conversations they’ve been avoiding.”
Clara, on what a first session is for

04Ways to work together

Three ways in. Each one starts with a conversation, not a proposal.

Book a free forty-minute call and tell Clara what’s going on. If she’s the right person, you’ll leave with a plan. If she isn’t, you’ll leave with a name.

Close-up of Clara’s clasped hands and gold rings resting on her knee
A leadership team sitting in a semicircle in a bright room with tall windows, notebooks open, one woman smiling as she reads
An audience in a dark, warm-lit auditorium, leaning forward and listening closely

The studio, Frederiksberg

I · For one leaderSix months

Close-up of Clara’s clasped hands and gold rings resting on her knee

One-to-one coaching

For your first year in a bigger job.

Twelve sessions over six months, in the studio or on video, built around the decisions and conversations actually in your calendar. Most clients are new CEOs, founders whose company has outgrown them on paper, and COOs who’ve been told they’re “a bit much”.

Format
12 sessions of 90 minutes, in Frederiksberg or by video
Includes
A listening tour of 8–12 colleagues, messages between sessions answered within a day, a check-in 90 days after we finish
Investment
From €9,800
Ask about 1:1 coaching

II · For a leadership teamTwo days

A leadership team sitting in a semicircle in a bright room with tall windows, notebooks open

Team workshops

For the argument you’ve been postponing.

Two days off-site with your leadership team, up to fourteen people. Clara interviews everyone beforehand, so the workshop starts with what people actually think rather than what they say in meetings. You leave with decisions, owners and dates, written down.

Format
Two days in Copenhagen or at your place, for up to 14 people
Includes
A one-to-one interview with every participant, a written record of what was decided, a half-day follow-up at day 60
Investment
From €14,500
Plan a workshop

III · For a whole room30–60 minutes

An audience in a dark, warm-lit auditorium, listening closely

Keynotes

One idea, told well enough to stick.

Talks for conferences, kick-offs and company days, in English or Danish. Each one is shaped by five short interviews with people who’ll be in the audience, so it lands in your room rather than a generic one. Every seat gets a one-page takeaway.

Signature talks
  • The four-second pause
  • Decide, then explain
  • Quiet authority
Includes
A briefing call, five audience interviews, Q&A or a fireside format
Investment
From €12,000 + travel
Check a date

05The method

Listen. Say. Hold.
In that order, every time.

Every engagement, from a single keynote to six months of coaching, runs on the same three moves. Each one makes room for the next.

  1. i.

    Listen

    The listening tour

    Before we properly start, Clara interviews eight to twelve people who work with you: your team, your peers, sometimes your chair. You get what they said, unedited and unattributed. Most clients call it the most useful hour of their year, and the most uncomfortable.

    Weeks 1–38–12 interviewsOne unedited transcript

  2. ii.

    Say

    The hard sentence

    Every engagement turns on one sentence you’ve been avoiding. To a co-founder, a board, a team that’s been told “nothing will change”. We find it, write it down and rehearse it until it sounds like you on a good day. Then you say it.

    Weeks 4–10Rehearsed in the studioSaid in real life

  3. iii.

    Hold

    The ninety days

    Change shows up in your calendar, not your journal. Together you redesign your one-to-ones, your Monday meeting and how decisions get explained, then Clara checks back at day 30, 60 and 90 to see whether it held.

    Weeks 11–24Check-ins at 30 · 60 · 90 days

06Letters

What clients wrote afterwards.

Unprompted, mostly. Clara keeps every one in a box file in the studio, and reads one aloud on bad days.

9/10coaching clients renew or refer someone within two years
4.9average organiser rating across 212 talks
She asked one question in our first session that I’m still answering. Our exec team now meets half as often and decides twice as much.
Mette KraghCEO, Søholm Foods · Aarhus
+31

points on our team trust survey, six months after a two-day workshop.

Søholm Foods leadership teamWorkshop, spring 2025
The listening tour was brutal and kind at the same time. I learned more in that hour than in two 360 reviews.
Pallavi NayarCOO, Fjordline Health · Oslo
Clara never told me what to do. She just made it impossible to keep not doing it.
Sofie BrandtManaging partner, Brandt & Øster Architects
I came in wanting to be more confident. I left wanting to be clearer, which turned out to be the same thing.
Tiago FerrazVP Engineering, Kelpie Labs · Lisbon
Worth every krone. My board noticed the difference before I told them I was being coached.
Emil DahlFounder, Spor Mobility · Copenhagen
I booked Clara for a forty-minute keynote. Three months later our managers still say “four seconds” to each other in meetings.
Jonas WeberHead of People, Lindholm Logistics · Hamburg
Our two founders stopped interrupting each other. I honestly didn’t think that was possible.
Anders HolmChair, Tillit Software · Copenhagen
4.9 / 5

average rating from organisers, across 212 talks in nine countries.

Speaker feedback2015–2026
The best-rated session in eleven years of our summit. People queued to talk to her afterwards, and she stayed until the last one.
Lena StrømProgramme director, Nordic Leadership Summit
Two days with Clara and we finally had the argument we’d been postponing since 2023. Then we made the decision.
Karin SandvikCEO, Nord Kaffe · Bergen
She ran our reorg off-site like a good editor: she cut everything that wasn’t true.
Hanne LauritsenCFO, Vinter Group · Copenhagen

07The book & the letter

Quiet Authority

Twenty-four short chapters on the conversations leaders avoid, from giving notice to a friend to disagreeing with your chair in public. Written in the studio over two winters, mostly before eight in the morning.

Bramble & Ash, 2025256 pagesIn 7 languagesDanish edition: Stille autoritet

“The least shouty leadership book I own, and the one I’ve lent out most.”

Rasmus Vinding, founder, Hjem Studio
Read chapter one Order a signed copy

Monday Notes

One short letter every other Monday about a conversation leaders tend to avoid. About 600 words, read by 18,400 people who run things. Free, and easy to leave.

  1. № 112The meeting after the meeting
  2. № 111Your one-to-ones are status reports
  3. № 110How to disagree with a founder in public
  4. № 109The four-second pause, explained

08Speaking inquiries

Bring Clara to your stage.

Clara gives around forty talks a year and usually books four to seven months ahead. Tell us about the room and the date, and we’ll come back with availability and a fee.

Keynotes
From €12,000
plus travel from Copenhagen
Workshops
From €14,500
two days, up to 14 people
Languages
English or Danish
Short notice
A few dates each spring are held back for it

MMikkel Aagaard runs the studio diary and answers every inquiry within two working days.

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