
Annemarie Steen
With her unique interactive and playful style of delivery, Annemarie touches heads and hearts and creates memorable moments of connection, transformative learning, and actionable ideas for thriving in a fast-changing world.
Annemarie Steen's videos
What Annemarie Steen's clients say
"The first time I met Annemarie was during a training of THNK for the Ministry of Defense. Goal of the training was to enhance Design Thinking within our Ministry. Annemarie is a very inspiring trainer, has a lot of positive energy and has the skills to bring this energy over to her public. Besides that she can give feedback and feedforward in a way that is very helpful for people who look for further personal development. And last but not least, she can make you laugh, which is very powerful when you train people."
"Annemarie made us laugh and play like children. We hired her as a speaker and I had no idea what specifically she would do. She would not tell me and asked me to trust her. I did trust her and the result was just lovely."
"Designing a programme for an insurance company how to improve creativity into their innovation processes, I asked Annemarie to facilitate a workshop for opening their minds, and setting the stage. It was really fun, she did a great job! Annemarie hit the head, hearts and hands of all the participants involved. Thanks Annemarie!"
"Annemarie is an inspiring speaker filling any room with positive energy. She gave us a full day seminar covering topics like motivation, increasing own and team’s energy, change management, etc. The strongest aspect of Annemarie’s training was using of simple real life examples so that complex topics became easy to grasp."
"Annemarie provided me with lots of new ideas to inspire my students into working with trends. She’s very creative and practical in offering solutions and making you invent them yourself. A very useful workshop!"
"Annemarie is a passionate educator with deep messages, amazing energy and unique personality. She is an Easier Done than Said lady. She has a very strong sixth sense and she dares to follow her heart. Annemarie is a playful and skillful facilitator, very creative. She dares to try new things, overcoming with courage her fears. She is extremely sensitive to the needs of the audience and has the rare talent to change the course of “a well planned flight” to overcome the unexpected."
Available for
Languages:
- Dutch ,
- English
Annemarie Steen's 2025 biography
Meet Annemarie Steen
The Playful Leadership Expert who invites her listeners into their ‘forgotten’ natural ability to connect, to innovate and to thrive in uncertainty.
With her unique interactive and playful style of delivery, Annemarie touches heads and hearts and creates memorable moments of connection, transformative learning and actionable ideas for thriving in a fast changing world.
Her talks are not just informative, but engaging experiences that encourage participants to step out of their comfort zones and embrace innovation and change with enthusiasm.
Annemarie seamlessly integrates her insights into leadership strategies, challenging traditional paradigms and inspiring fresh perspectives.
Annemarie’s charismatic presence and dynamic approach leave a lasting impression, motivating leaders to adopt a more open, adaptable, and creative mindset.
Annemarie Steen’s Background
Being a lifelong learner, Annemarie is always exploring experiential ways to create transformative insights with impact for herself and others. She sees life as this infinite playground of possibility to explore, experience and create by following what sparks her natural curiosity and joy. What brings you joy?
Growing up in a rational high IQ family, where there was little room for creative and emotional expression, she discovered a way to do this through acting and improvisation. This even resulted in playing several roles in TV-series from the age of 13, including a leading role in a German TV movie “Moffengriet” awarded DAG Fernsehpreis (1990) and a role in a popular womens prison series “Vrouwenvleugel” (1994). Because it was never her intention to become a professional actress, she decided to embark on a new adventure as a self-employed corporate trainer (after finishing Mediastudies and being a tourleader in India and Nepal for 2 years).
Now, with 20+ years of experience in the professional training business, she has realized that truly transformative learningexperiences always involve taking action, an emotional respons and reflection. – We don’t learn from experience, but from reflecting on our experience –
When choosing Annemarie for your event, you can expect your audience being invited slightly out of comfort, shifting into having a lot of fun and getting a grounded debrief resulting in memorable insights. Annemarie enjoys customizing her talks and interactive experiences to your objectives/ themes for your event into meaningful fun. What is the theme for your next event?
Annemarie is the owner of SteenTrain (since 2009), founder of Play-Break, and partners as a senior facilitator with THNK (School of Creative Leadership) and The Core Story, where she combines her experience in the field of playfulness, applied improvisation, creative leadership and storytelling to help individuals and organizations unleash their creative potential and authentic leadership.
Annemarie is able to deliver and tailor to a large variety in audiences and across sectors.
She has been speaking at large events since 2012 (Healthcare Singapore), a TEDx (Dublin, 2014), several Leadership Conferences (Estonia), Digital Innovation Events (Netherlands and Switzerland), for Higher Education (at Stanford, Fontys, Hogeschool Netherlands, EBS). Industry Conferences (Athens, Madrid) and Networking events (MPI, AIN, DREAM).
Annemarie speaks in English and Dutch
Annemarie Steen's 2025 talks & topics
Playful Leadership for thriving in uncertainty
Playful leadership is a leadership style that incorporates elements of curiosity, exploration, creativity, and a positive approach into the way leaders interact with their teams and manage their organizations. It involves using techniques and strategies inspired by the principles of play to foster a positive work environment, encourage innovation, enhance collaboration, and boost employee engagement.
It’s important to note that playful leadership doesn’t mean being unserious or lacking in discipline. Instead, it’s about incorporating elements of play and creativity into the leadership style in a way that benefits both the team and the organization as a whole.
Playful Leadership principles to foster a culture of innovation and to thrive in uncertainty, according to Annemarie;
Presence,
Listening deeply,
Adaptability, saying
YES to exploring options and embrace failure as How Fascinating! moments
Focus positive (and reframe your limiting beliefs)
Uplift and manage energy and
Learn continuously from a growth mindset
Annemarie has been awarded “Best visiting lecturer” at the Estonian Business School for her course on Creative and Playful Leadership for MBA Master students, that she has been teaching for 8 years.
Making meaningful connections
Making new connections and enhancing existing ones is why we attend events. However, for a lot of people making new connections can be challenging for several reasons. Social anxiety, fear of judgement or rejection, lack of confidence, introversion, technology distraction, culture differences, limited time or crowd dynamics.
Annemarie lowers the barriers and with her interactive talk she invites her audience into deeply connecting experiences in a playful way. By being authentic and present, by listening deeply, by finding (unusual) common grounds and share slightly out of comfortzone co-creative experiences.
Long after the event is over people will remember the experience and have made lasting connections.
A smile is the shortest distance between two people (Victor Borge)
In an hour of play, you learn more about a person than in a year of conversation (Plato).
Play-Break for well-being, creativity and productivity
While facing uncertainty herself during Covid Lockdown, Annemarie applied her own teachings by asking herself a powerful Creative Question that enabled her to take action on a few ideas. She not only challenged her own limiting beliefs but her ideas turned into a new business: Play-Break.
The concept of playbreaks is rooted in the understanding that regular short breaks (micro-moments of recovery) from work can actually enhance creativity, productivity and well-being. It’s a way to prevent burnout, maintain focus, and promote a balanced and healthy work routine. Integrating playbreaks into the workday acknowledges the importance of self-care and the benefits of incorporating moments of joy and playfulness into daily life.
Annemarie’s keynote about Play-Break will not only be inspiring and informative, she is actively inviting her audience to experience different Play-Breaks to discover their own playtype. This will bring a lot of positive energy to the room and actionable ideas on how to integrate the concept of playbreaks in daily routine.
Presenting with impact
Discover your PLAY
Creativity and Innovation (Design Thinking)
Train-the-Trainer
Storytelling for business