Bernard Sonke

Bernard Sonke spent many years in the upper ranks of international business, mostly at General Electric. Within its financial arm, GE Capital, he held the role of Commercial Manager – Working Capital Solutions. After an acquisition by the Japanese firm MUFG, he experienced a profound cultural shift: from an American, performance-driven environment to a strongly hierarchical Japanese corporate organization.

At MUFG, Bernard held the position of Director – Working Capital Distribution, in which he was responsible for the international distribution of working capital solutions. During this period, he noticed that his own values and ambitions increasingly clashed with the organization’s culture. Eventually both parties decided their paths would part, a moment that opened the door for Bernard to a new phase in his career. He describes it himself as: “Capitalist turned Catalyst.”

With that shift, he founded the Human Performance Group, driven by one clear conviction: to only do work that contributes to the wellbeing and functioning of people.
Bernard studied Commercial Economics and completed his Executive MBA at the Rotterdam School of Management in 2011 — two intensive years that he himself describes as a pressure cooker. What sets him apart is that he knows the performance-driven, hierarchical world from the inside and understands what it does to people. He was coached through it himself, among others by Armand, and went through the transformation he now guides in others firsthand. This allows him, like no one else, to put himself in the shoes of leaders and teams facing fundamental change, and to help them perform at their best again when it truly matters.

Bernard is driven and people-oriented, with a mission that has always stayed with him: to be meaningful to others. He has been married for fourteen years, is the father of two sons, and lives in Teteringen, just outside Breda. In his free time he’s often outdoors as a runner and snowboarder — the latter as a certified instructor, a hobby that has completely gotten out of hand.