About Femke

Femke is a mediator, lawyer and historian.

Throughout her professional career, she has been dedicated to bringing people and organisations together around financial, business and social issues. As a result, she has become an expert in building connections. Today, she uses that experience as a mediator.

She has a broad background, having worked for more than thirty years in the world of philanthropy as a trusted adviser to charitable foundations, families, social initiatives and non-profit organisations. She also spent nearly twenty years as a guest lecturer in higher professional education, teaching the subject of “grantmaking, fundraising and civil society”.

As a mediator, she focuses on employment disputes, (pre-)inheritance matters and family issues.

Femke is also available as a facilitator for families who wish to work constructively on transferring wealth or a family business to the next generation; who want to give their wealth greater meaning for society; or who, with the support of a specialised mediator, want to prevent conflicts within the family relating to upcoming legal or business matters. In many cases, she works together with other specialists.

As a certified inheritance mediator with in-depth knowledge of the charitable sector, she conducts pre-inheritance conversations with people considering including a charity in their will, or mediates between charities and beneficiaries.

She has particular expertise in charitable foundations, private foundations and country estates.

Femke also volunteers as a community mediator.

Femke in her own words

"My mission is to soften differences by listening and thereby create space for constructive and sustainable solutions that work for everyone involved. The (often) additional benefit is that the parties reconnect with one another. My role as a mediator is impartial and independent: I treat all participants equally and have no interest in any particular outcome. I guide the process; the parties themselves come up with the solutions.

In family mediation, my aim is to prevent or resolve problems within a family. Family issues may include, for example, a dispute over an inheritance or a situation in which old grievances disrupt communication between family members. These are often complex issues involving multiple generations. When family members, under my guidance, engage in conversation with one another again and truly listen to each other, they arrive at acceptable solutions that benefit everyone."