Meet the founders: the questions we would rather not be asked

What gives you two the right to advise anyone on their career?

Julie: Honestly? Not a certificate. I have reinvented my career every time my husband's job moved us: from a dream role at Nike in Amsterdam to Paris, where EMEA strategy was not run out of a local office, so I rebuilt my network and my case for myself from nothing. Before that, the roles reversed, and I was the one who left a role in the US for one in the UK so we could move closer to family and grow it. Four countries, two kids, and one rule we never break: we do not do long distance. We built the thing we needed and could not find, and that is the only credential we claim.

Elselien: We aren't here just to hand out advice, we're here to share real experience, giving people the tools and levers we wished we'd had. When I made the move from Ireland to Norway, I'd only visited once. I didn't speak the language, had no network, and wasn't sure where my career was headed. Going through that showed me just how powerful it is to have a launchpad like Pirouette to guide you through relocating and building a life abroad.

What did your own pivots actually cost you?

Julie: The first time, it cost me my footing entirely. I left a role at a major consumer electronics company in Amsterdam to follow my husband to the US with nothing lined up for me. I gave up the identity that job had given me, landed somewhere I was not yet fluent in the language, and spent a stretch rebuilding from zero, in a new country, under real stress. It was scary. It was also one of the most exciting decisions we ever made, and I would not undo it.

Elselien: In hindsight, stepping away didn't cost me anything. Though at the time, it felt like throwing off a warm, comfortable blanket. Starting fresh in a place where you know no one and nothing is scary, but that uncertainty transforms into immense pride the moment a new city starts feeling like home. Rebuilding your life from scratch and watching everything fall into place gives you a rush like no other.

How did you two meet, and why build this together?

Our friendship started at five years old in a village in Belgium, and thirty years later, we're still going strong. For the past 15 years, we've been living parallel lives abroad, two Belgians constantly comparing notes across borders. From Spain, Ireland and Norway for Elselien to the Netherlands, US, the UK, and France for Julie, we've both navigated the ups and downs of adapting to new cultures and languages. Though Julie always admits she's glad Elselien was the one who had to tackle Norwegian!

The career advice industry has a snake oil problem. Why are you different?

So much advice at a career crossroads is just motivation disguised as methodology: vision boards, personality quizzes, or paid listeners nodding on a screen. Pirouette takes a different approach. We build structure around your real data, your skills, your non-negotiables, and your financial reality, to give you a structured path forward. If we fail to show you something concrete about your potential in the first session, we haven't done our job. We give you the blueprint and the momentum, but you bring the ownership.

The first thing in your product is a conversation with an AI. Careers are deeply human. Why should anyone trust a machine with theirs?

It comes down to what we ask technology to do, and where we draw the line. The Skills Mirror offers fifteen minutes of structured prompt-work that delivers the value of a multi-hundred-euro expert consultation, focusing on a single task: helping you see your career experience in a brand-new light. Because it's trained on human-crafted questions, the decisions always stay human. Your cohort is human, your coaches are human, and no algorithm will ever decide your future for you.

Who is Pirouette not for?

An honest anti-pitch builds more trust than any testimonial, so here is the truth:

• People who want to be told what to do: you're looking for someone to hand you a simple answer rather than rolling up your sleeves to map it out.
• People in a financial emergency: if you need a paycheck this month to pay rent, you need immediate stabilisation, and this programme might cause you more stress.
• The comfortable and curious: if you're already happy with your setup and just looking to browse, we would advise you to play around with the Skills Mirror for now, not go for the full package.

The beta is open to anyone now. What has surprised you most about your first users?

Our users kept telling us how surprised they were by the Skills Mirror: in just a few minutes, it truly "got" who they were and guided them seamlessly through every question.

Sophie, the woman on your homepage. Real person or marketing invention?

Yes, Marc and Sophie are real! We adjusted their names and ages to respect their privacy, but every part of their journey is true. It's always better to build on genuine human experiences rather than a made-up marketing story. Sophie's longer story is here.

What would make you shut Pirouette down?

If we ever reach a point where our graduates aren't making genuine, meaningful progress, we'll stop. And if keeping the lights on ever depends on pushing artificial urgency or taking money from people we know we can't help, we'd rather walk away. Our integrity is the whole point.

Why the name Pirouette? Ballet owns that word.

When naming the program, we needed a word that described a major life pivot, however elegantly. Having spent more than two decades in ballet, Elselien made the choice surprisingly easy for us!

That is the whole interview. If you have read this far you are probably deciding whether to trust two strangers with something that matters, and reading about us only gets you so far. Pirouette opens with fifteen minutes of questions about your own experience, and one sitting is enough to tell you whether it showed you anything you did not already know. Judge it on that. Free to start, and if the answer is no we would rather hear why than not hear from you.