Dr Ira van der Steenstraten is the founding director of Vitae Wellbeing & Leadership.
With over 35 years of experience in a wide variety of working environments, Ira brings profound understanding and insights to her coaching practices. Her wealth of experience in a broad range of executive and leadership roles shaped Ira's coaching activities which led to the start of 'Vitae Wellbeing & Leadership'. Her experience of supporting a broad variety of professionals, especially those working in high-pressure environments, combined with her passion for improving the lives of others, make Ira a highly sought-after coach, workshop facilitator, and public speaker in the field of wellbeing and leadership. She combines her comprehensive skills and expertise with practical, science-based tools. And a touch of humor.
Ira was trained as a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and systems therapist in The Netherlands, where she worked as a consultant psychiatrist until her move to Brisbane in 2008. This turned out to be a defining moment in her life. She realised she wanted to focus on wellbeing and how to stay well, rather than ill-health. To empower clients to gain more control and clarity and find the best version of themselves.
This inspired her to add coaching skills to her comprehensive training and experience in mental health, and started her first coaching practice 'Breeze Life Coaching'. Having faced personal and systemic challenges in a variety of positions in the medical workplace herself, she became motivated to specialise in Doctors' Health & Wellbeing and Women in Leadership.
Commissioned by the AMA Queensland, she co-developed the groundbreaking and award-winning program ‘Resilience on the Run’ in 2014, which was later remodelled to the 'Wellbeing at Work' program. This is the first and only face-to-face wellbeing program, supported by Queensland Health and implemented state-wide in Australia for (junior) doctors. To date, these programs have equipped close to 5000 (junior) doctors with practical tools to improve their wellbeing and take better care of each other, leading to a more supportive work environment. The experience of facilitating these programs within and outside of Queensland and Australia deepened Ira's understanding of current challenges in the medical profession. The program was awarded 'Best Public Health Initiative' in 2018.
In addition, Ira is also an experienced mindfulness trainer. Her work with mindfulness focuses on preventative rather than curative techniques and has proved effective and successful in enabling a wide range of people to benefit from mindfulness skills. She has developed several innovative mindfulness programs for adults and children, such as Mindfulness for Busy People and Mindfulness for Schoolchildren.
A thought leader in the fields of (workplace) wellbeing and leadership with publications in peer-reviewed journals, Ira is a well-regarded speaker at conferences worldwide. She has been invited to speak at over 20 conferences, on topics such as Mental Wellbeing, Creating a Healthy Mindset, Healthy Workplaces, Burnout Prevention, Beating Burnout, Compassion/Empathy Fatigue, Doctors’ Health, Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Women in Leadership, Coping with Chronic Disorders, such as Chronic Pain, Endometriosis.
Additionally, Ira is a guest lecturer at the Universities of Girona (Spain) and Hanze University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands) on healthy workplaces and burnout prevention.
More recently, Ira joined forces with Executive Consulting Group as a senior executive coach.
Ira is committed to giving back to her community. She brings a wealth of experience in doctors' health and wellbeing and leadership positions. She is the Immediate Past and current Vice-President of the Queensland Medical Women's Society (QMWS) and serves on the management committee of Doctors' Health in Queensland (DHQ) as their Vice-President.
