Episodes

Alexandra grew up in the outskirts North-West London, educated in an all girls school and attended Chelsea Art School - where her love for art, creativity, fashion finally exploded. Followed by attending Manchester Metropolitan University studying Womenswear design, then London College of Fashion for her Masters in

menswear design. 

Internships on Savile Row - infamous tailoring street in London - British Designer Jasper Conran - assisting his womenswear designer. 

With stints at Liberty of London and Inditex in Barcelona after completing her Masters, went to work for Burberry in London - which she describes as her great education inside the fashion industry.

She now resides with her partner in Amsterdam and started her own brand almost 4 years ago, Alexandra Barker, and has been featured in editorials in Vogue Living, Harper’s Bazaar, Jane by the Grey Attic, Schon magazine, Jan magazine and Grazia.

This is the story of her amazing journey

Agnesz Anna was born on the 5th of January. Since a child she has been singing, dancing and acting. She began her acting career in the youth theatre in Groningen and later joined the Dutch theatre group, De Noordelingen. She studied dance before moving to Spain. At 22, she was accepted to the prestigious Lee Strasberg school of Acting in New York. In 2010 she returned to the Netherlands to continue her acting career and also make a career as a singer songwriter.

Her debut self titled album, Agnesz Anna was released on November 20th this year and is a musical portrait of the last decade of her life,

....this is her story

Chris Westendorp is a prize winning Amsterdam based screenwriter and documentary maker. If you watch Dutch television, you will most likely have seen one of Chris’s shows. She was head writer for many popular tv-series, such as Penoza, a series with five remakes in different countries, Seven Little Criminals and Santos.

For Seven Little Criminals and Santos she won the Golden Calf, the Dutch prize for best tv-series of the year.

She wrote a number of features, such as Confetti Harvest, Boys, Hemelrijken and Beraber. Her film Boys (co-written with Jaap Peter Enderlé) famously is now one of the 50 must see gay films.

Next to writing, Chris is also passionate about documentaries. She worked on the acclaimed documentary-series Debt Society and Class Rooms. She directed the documentary-series Hidden about unseen warfare between states and was selected for CannesSeriés 2024.

Chris has just finished another documentary called Queerkamp as co-director.

At the moment Chris is working on two features for the big screen and in January 2026 we will see the premier of her episode of the high action series, Alpha.

...this is her story

Lora Mander is a theatre director and English fluidity coach. She holds a Master’s in theatre directing from St. Mary’s College and has staged plays and operas in the USA, UK and Netherlands. After starting Orange Tea Theatre (now Orange Theatre Company) in 2011, she has settled into a coaching career in the Netherlands and works with a variety of actors, singers and professionals to help their performance and delivery in American English.

...this is her story

Born in Denmark and raised in Copenhagen, Aileen Christensen spent her childhood between the cobbled streets of the city and the wild west coast of Ireland, her mother’s homeland. Though geography says otherwise, she considers herself half Danish, half Irish—and half Australian, after years spent under Melbourne’s big skies.

Aileen has held nearly every marketing role imaginable at her employer, Elsevier, from customer engagement to digital acquisition, and currently leads the GenAI strategy for its 200+ global marketing team. Alongside her day job, she’s completing an Executive MBA, fuelled by strong coffee and early morning study sessions.

For Aileen, coffee isn’t just a drink, it’s a ritual, a connector, and a reminder that the best ideas often start with a good cup and great conversation.

...this is her story

Iris Posthouwer is an author, keynote speaker and trainer, specializing in boundary-setting and communication in professional settings. She aims to make uncomfortable conversations more comfortable. 

She works with teams and leaders across sectors — from healthcare to media — helping people navigate tension, speak up with clarity, and stay human in difficult conversations. Her bestselling book “Iets met grenzen stellen” (“Something About Setting Boundaries”) has resonated widely in the Netherlands. 

This is her story...

Marie Körbl is a Dutch performer, musical theatre artist and theatre maker whose work is centered around the narratives of womanhood She trained in Urban Contemporary Dance (JMD) at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and holds a Master’s degree in Musical Theatre from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London.

Marie has also appeared in major musical theatre productions performing the role of Vlinder in Zodiac the musical, Frenchy in Grease & cover Sophie in MAMMA MIA! UK.

Marie will soon appear in Aletta – de Musical (Theater Oostpool & TEC Entertainment), a comedy musical about the life of Aletta Jacobs, the first female doctor in the Netherlands and a pioneer for women’s rights. The production premieres 21 March 2026 in Amsterdam and will tour nationally.

Tony Tonnaer is a Conscious Consult with over 20 years experience in building sustainable denim brands. Tony has always had a love for denim, starting his first job in the denim industry in 1997 at Pepe Jeans as product manager working together with denim experts like James Veenhoff (House of Denim), Jason Denham (Denham), Karl-Heinz Müller (founder Bread&Butter) and Fred Gehring & Ludo Onnink (Tommy Hilfiger).

After Pepe jeans he helped revive the Dutch denim brand Kuyichi putting them on the map as the first sustainable denim brand in the European market. 

In 2011 Tony made his own mark on the industry when he launched his brand ‘Kings of Indigo’ that became one of the key pioneering denim brands at the forefront of sustainable innovations.

This is his story today...

Jan Roelfs is a key note speaker on Personal Leadership in Group Dynamics and Personal Positioning in the Demanding World of Media.

He studied Political Science and International Relations in Amsterdam before joining the Public Relations firm Hill & Knowlton and eventually fulfilling one of his dreams to become a sports host at RTL Television in the Netherlands, Sport 7 and the international pay TV Sports channel Canal +.

His voice is known by millions on Dutch national broadcast corporation NOS as a member of their sports presentation and commentator team. At NOS he is the

commentator on all the big Football events (Champions League, World Cup), and other events as the Olympic Summer and Winter games, the Tennis Grand Slams; Melbourne, Paris, London, New York. 

A regular to Monks Coffee, I'm thrilled he's joining me on Coffee Matters today.

Johan Kenhuis, elite swimmer and Olympian has two Olympic medals (bronze in Sydney 2000 and silver in Athens 2004) and many championship medals under his belt and I’m thrilled he agreed to chat to me today on Coffee Matters.

Johan was born and raised in the country side (Twente in North Holland) He grew up working in a traditional butcher shop owned by his parents as a teenager. As the youngest of 5 children, born into a family of swimmers, he had to join the swimming club for at least one year after getting his swimming diploma and then decide if we wanted to continue. His Father and uncle were waterpolo players, in fact the whole family were swimmers and waterpolo players. He tried waterpolo but wasn’t good at the game, but was a really fast swimmer. At age 15 he decided to pursue swimming seriously. Not because he dreamt of going to the Olympics, but because he wanted to be really good at something.

Jessica Hjarrand is a 'soft infrastructure development' expert. She has been working to reform systems by building partnerships between people for over 20 years, mainly in the areas of education and early childhood development but also on freedom of expression and the empowerment of women. Most of her work has been focused on systems and people living in countries affected by conflict of all kinds, including war. Since this recording, she had been working with UNICEF in Ukraine. This is the 7th country affected by conflict that she has worked in. 

She was in the Middle East for the Arab Spring, in South Sudan after it got its independence and in Libya after the Revolution among a few of her experiences. 

Jessica says she is driven to leave the world better than she found it, and to have fun doing so, but also to leave behind something that inspires others to act as well.  

Is this 12 part series I speak to our amazing customers about their lives and journeys and also why coffee matters to them. Follow for a new episode every Monday

Today I'm talking to Dominik Winterling, Managing Director of the The Concertgebouw Orchestra. An insightful and very interesting journey through his life to manager of one of the most famous orchestras in the world.

Is this 12 part series I speak to our amazing customers about their lives and journeys and also why coffee matters to them. Follow for a new episode every Monday

In Episode 1 we speak to Richard Jones, a Welsh man brought up in Cardiff and the founder of Jones Brothers Coffee Company, an independent coffee brand based in Amsterdam since 2013. A firm believer in the power of specialty coffee, Richard champions its ability to create better livelihoods for farmers and elevate the coffee experience for consumers. His mission has been to educate, inform, inspire, and improve the way people understand and enjoy coffee. Whether through ethical sourcing, advocating for sustainability, or sharing his expertise, Richard is committed to making every cup count.

Over the next 12-episode weekly series we will delve into coffee culture through the lens of unique guests, exploring their personal coffee tastes and stories from their professional lives while connecting everything back to the coffee they drink.

In this Episode we speak to Sahand Sahebdivani, born in 1980 in Tehran and is an Iranian-Dutch storyteller, musician and the founder of cultural centre Mezrab. Sahand arrived in the Netherlands at the age of three as a refugee from the Iran-Iraq war. He was Storyteller of the Year 2014 and won the Amsterdam Fringe Gold Award in 2017.

Sahand is co-director of the Amsterdam Storytelling Festival and the most famous storyteller in the Netherlands. He performs on many national and international stages with solo shows and ensemble work. In 2004 he founded the Mezrab, which has since grown into one of the most important storytelling cafés in the world. The experiences of him and his family form the basis of most of his work. This is his story...

Over the next 12-episode weekly series we will delve into coffee culture through the lens of unique guests, exploring their personal coffee tastes and stories from their professional lives while connecting everything back to the coffee they drink.