There is a particular kind of professional who has done everything right - the degrees, the consulting firms, the multinationals, the salary that makes dinner party guests slightly uncomfortable - and then, somewhere around their 39th birthday, decides to do something that looks, from the outside, completely wrong. Janet Czifrus is that person. And she would argue, with considerable warmth and a dose of Ayurvedic wisdom, that it was the first truly right thing she ever did.
Born Zsanett Czifrus in Hungary and professionally known as Janet across European corporate corridors, she graduated with not one but two Master's degrees from elite institutions - Corvinus University of Budapest and the CEMS network of management schools - and spent the next 14 years doing exactly what you do with that kind of credential. She worked in top-tier consulting firms and multinational corporations across Europe, EMEA, and the United States, navigating finance, marketing, sales, supply chain, and data governance in cities that read like a business travel frequent flyer wish list: London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Copenhagen, Johannesburg.
At some point - and this is the part that separates Janet from most people who tell a similar story - she also got serious about yoga. Not gym-class yoga. Not wellness-retreat yoga. She trained as a Certified Hatha Yoga and Meditation Teacher through Yoga Alliance in 2016, then went to India. Twice. In 2017 and 2019, she studied in Indian ashrams and received initiation into the Himalayan Tradition, including a personal mantra. She became a certified doula. She built a decade-long practice in Ayurveda, silent retreats, and mindful eating that runs parallel to her management consulting career like a second life - until eventually, it became the main life.
The catalyst was her 39th birthday. She made a decision - articulated quietly, characteristically - to design her dream life by 40. She left Munich. She traveled. She ended up in Porto, Portugal, where she currently writes, coaches internationally, and occasionally hikes the Fishermen's Trail along the Atlantic coast. When she ended one such hike earlier than planned, she published the reflection: "The trail ends when you get what you came for." That sentence is also a coaching philosophy.
Two Masters. One Mantra. Infinite Reinventions.What she does now looks deceptively simple from the outside: executive coaching for founders, female leaders, and international professionals. Rates of 220-450 euros an hour. The kind of coaching that gets recommended through whisper networks in startup circles. But the method is unusual. Sessions might include grounding practices, somatic work, affirmation cards she designed herself, a shared cooking experience, or meditation. She describes her approach as "intuitive, holistic and unconventional," drawn from two decades of personal practice, global travel, and the rare experience of having actually worked in the industries her clients are navigating.
Her TEDx talk at TEDxYouth@Budapest, delivered in Hungarian under the title "Tudatos Etelvitel" (Conscious Eating / Mindful Eating), argues that the way we eat is a mirror of the way we live - and that changing one can change the other. It is a talk that could only be given by someone who is simultaneously a management consultant and a certified mindful eating trainer. She created Mindful Dine, a program that turns the dinner table into a site of self-inquiry.
She runs the "Mindful Entrepreneur" Substack newsletter - four years old and still going - aimed at women building service-based businesses. She also writes "Less Traveled," a newsletter and podcast for global citizens navigating unconventional paths. Between these publications, the coaching practice, the yoga teaching, and the meditation sessions she hosts on Insight Timer, Janet Czifrus has built something that management consulting schools do not offer a curriculum for: a life that is exactly what she says she helps others find.
- Zsanett, on herself
Her mentors shaped the practice: Ann-Marie McKelvey showed her how coaching could contribute to a better world; Emily Walker modeled empathy and deep trust in the process; Rich Litvin demonstrated what service-oriented, value-based coaching looks like when it is not transactional. She has passed all three lessons forward, to the 100+ people who have worked with her through career pivots, life reinventions, and the particular kind of crisis that comes from having built the right resume and the wrong life.
She coaches growth companies, supports non-profits and social enterprises, works with international teams and expats, and advocates for women in leadership. She is also, for what it is worth, the founder of Plant Moms Munich - a Facebook community for urban gardeners - which says something true about the ratio between her ambitions and her attention to small delights. She loves pink. She is known among friends for elevator selfies. She calls herself a "multi-interest Vata," which is Ayurvedic for someone whose energy runs in many directions at once. It is an accurate diagnosis.
The question worth asking about Janet Czifrus is not what she does - the list is long and searchable - but why the combination works. The answer, she would probably say, is that everything is connected. The management frameworks and the meditation sessions are the same conversation conducted in different languages. The boardroom and the ashram are teaching the same lesson. The job is to notice, and then to help others notice too.
She is currently in Porto. Coaching internationally. Writing two newsletters. Probably planning the next hike.