Johanna Zeilstra

Business adviser, Change Agent, Christian, Connector, Parent, Philanthropist, Social entrepreneur, Startup, World traveler

Johanna Zeilstra is an established business strategist and an accomplished management leader for global corporations. Over the past two decades, she has worked with over a dozen corporations, including Delta Air Lines, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Philips, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BP, and Occidental Petroleum. Her career has led her to work in Canada, China, Indonesia, France, The Netherlands, Mexico and across the US. As a business executive, her focus has been on helping businesses accelerate their strategy by creating focus on their top priorities and engaging the whole business system. She acts as a coach to senior executives on boards and top teams and has a passion for supporting personal change in making large business changes stick. Zeilstra co-developed a model on organizational change which has been pioneered and used in many large global corporations. Most recently, Zeilstra co-founded GiveBack, a technical platform that connects corporations' social responsibility with charities of the consumers choice. GiveBack makes it easy for companies to build authentic and impactful cause marketing, workplace giving and other social responsibility initiatives that increase engagement, brand differentiation and return on investment, while tying directly to business activities that drive the company’s bottom line. GiveBack helps build user-driven giving opportunities into existing online and off-line transactions that involve both customers and employees. Johanna is originally from the Netherlands. She was educated in Canada where she earned an undergraduate degree in Sociology and a Masters degree in Business Administration. She resides in Westchester, NY, with her husband and three sons.

Billionaires shouldn’t be the only people who feel like they can make a difference. As human beings we have a core altruistic impulse, and we innately understand that giving is right. But the systems around giving have historically been about “haves” dispensing to “have-nots.” The truth is everyone can make a difference, and everyone deserves to have tools that make giving work for them, no matter their social or financial standing. Individual giving is powerful in aggregate. One individual taking action can start a snowball effect that builds and builds. What started with one, one hundred, one thousand people can become a united, conquering force to be reckoned with. Change starts with one empowered person. "Each individual person is very important. Each person has tremendous potential. She or he alone can influence the lives of others within the communities, nations, within and beyond her or his own time.” –Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank Founder

Change & Leadership development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Cultural change, Organization Effectiveness, Six Sigma