Whoever leads the conversation decides what people remember
ianka fleerackers moderates conferences, debates, panels, podcasts and internal events. From executive committees to student auditoriums, from innovation congresses to sensitive internal moments.
What ianka does
Announcing, keeping time, welcoming a room and quieting it down again: it all counts, and every presenter does it well. It is also the minimum. What makes a day stay with people is that someone listens, hears where the real conversation is, and steers there — with humour where there is room for it, and without detours where there isn't.
It is not the quality of the separate parts that decides what people repeat afterwards. It is the connection someone draws between them. That is ianka's work.
Five things that rarely sit in one person
She holds the room.
Years on stage and in the media mean a room doesn't check out during the third block of the day. No forced energy, no tricks: presence, timing, and the composure to let a silence fall.
She asks the question that wasn't in the brief.
ianka prepares speakers thoroughly and then departs from the script where it gets interesting. She interviews with respect, but not with awe. A CEO notices that difference within two minutes — and so does the audience.
She knows your file before she walks on stage.
Journalism is the skill of making a subject your own in a short time when you knew nothing about it beforehand. ianka did that professionally for years and still does: she reads until she understands what the discussion in your sector is really about. As an entrepreneur she also knows how an organisation works, so her questions are about choices and trade-offs rather than about explanations everyone in the room already has.
She makes your speakers perform better than they would alone.
A stage makes people unequal. One speaker has been there a thousand times; the next is there for the first time and hears their own voice shake. ianka adapts to the person in front of her: language, pace, posture, how much space she takes. With a CEO who has already said everything, she pushes on. With someone who freezes, she slows down and asks the question again, smaller.
That is not friendliness, it is direction. A guest who feels at ease says something interesting. A guest who feels judged repeats the press release.
She saves the moment it goes wrong.
The keynote speaker is stuck in traffic, the tech gives up while the room sits watching, the CEO suddenly has to leave half an hour early, or there is news that morning nobody can ignore. It happens at almost every event, and it is the one part of the day you cannot plan. ianka doesn't fill those moments with apologies, but with a conversation, a question to the room, or a nod to what just happened. Often that turns out to be the part people remember.
Years of live radio and television are the reason: when it goes wrong there, you cannot stop and start again.
From an executive committee of twenty people to a congress with an audience of 2,000
ianka has moderated for years for organisations that have little in common. A bank, a port, a consultancy, a biotech institute, a university college, a network of business angels. The content differs completely every time. What stays the same is the brief: make sure this conversation goes somewhere.
She was the face of UBA Trends Day for years, moderated for TEDxFlanders and TEDxMechelen, and is as comfortable in front of an auditorium of students as in a room full of CEOs.
An event is a programme. Making programmes was her job for years.
Before she moderated events, ianka worked in the media for years: as a journalist, editor, programme maker and presenter at VRT (Klara, Canvas) and Kanaal Z, where she was trained in interview technique and voice.
She also works, and has worked, in the theatre — as an actor and as a director. That is not a colourful detail beside the CV, it explains the rest. A director thinks in build and rhythm: where do you put the heavy block, when does an audience need air, and how do you arrive somewhere at the end instead of simply stopping. A director also knows how to make someone perform better than they would alone, and that is exactly what a speaker on a stage needs.
And anyone who comes out of live radio and television has the reflexes you learn nowhere else: pressing on without becoming rude, saving a conversation that is going the wrong way, absorbing a seven-minute overrun without anyone in the room noticing.
That is why ianka is useful before the event begins. Organisers regularly involve her in building the programme itself, not only in running it. And the interviewing never stopped: as a podcast host she still has those conversations.
- Hundreds of interviews conducted
- Trained at VRT in interview technique and voice
- Programme maker and presenter at Klara, Canvas and Kanaal Z
- Theatre director
- Moderates in English and Dutch
What organisers bring her in for
Chairing a congress or conference
She keeps the thread across the whole programme, connects speakers to each other, and makes sure the day arrives somewhere instead of simply ending.
Panel and debate
Four panellists, thirty minutes, one person talking too much. ianka divides the space, keeps the edge in, and doesn't let the conversation sink into politeness.
One-on-one stage interview
A CEO, an author, a minister, a researcher. Thorough preparation, and then the conversation that is actually on the table.
Internal event
Kick-offs, town halls, strategy days, and moments where something sensitive has to be said. Here what counts most is what she doesn't do: force it, shout over it cheerfully, or act as though nothing is going on.
Awards, ceremonies and livestreams
Tight on timing, warm in tone, and comfortable on camera.
Podcast — at your event or as your own series
A live recording at your event, or hosting your own series. ianka interviews weekly as a podcast host, and that produces conversations that go past the level of a promotional chat.
Four formats for booking ianka
The event itself
ianka moderates your congress, panel, debate or internal event. Preparation with the organiser and the speakers is included as standard. This is the classic format, and for most events it is enough.
Moderator plus a hand in the programme
You involve ianka in building the event, not only in running it. What is the core question of this event? Which speakers do you actually need, and in what order? Where does a panel belong, and where is a panel simply the easy answer? She looks at your programme with an editor's eye, and also says what could come out.
Worth it when the theme isn't sharp yet, when your programme consists of separate parts that don't come together, or when you want a recurring event to evolve rather than repeat.
Preparing your own speakers
External speakers usually manage. The risk sits with your own people: the director who has poured their story into slides, the expert who wants to tell everything, the manager standing in front of two hundred colleagues for the first time. ianka coaches them beforehand — what is the core, what can go, how do you stand, what do you do with your nerves — and then moderates the day on which they have to deliver.
That is more than a dress rehearsal. Someone who has their own story sharp stands differently, months later too, in a meeting or with a client.
Worth it for internal events, kick-offs and congresses where colleagues have to take the stage themselves.
Moderator plus keynote
Besides moderating, ianka can give a keynote herself, at the start or at the end of the day. Both work, but they do different things.
As the opening keynote she sets a frame she can refer back to for the rest of the day. Every panel and every conversation can hook into what was said that morning. That is the difference between a day with a strong opener and a day with one continuous thought.
As the closing keynote she has an advantage no external speaker has: she has listened all day. She knows which sentence made the room look up, where it chafed, and which question went unanswered. Her closing words are then not a separate performance, but the synthesis of what actually happened that day — and that is exactly what people repeat afterwards.
We decide the subject together: from her own work on professional identity, authority and the future of work, or starting from the theme of your event.
What an audience experiences as spontaneity comes from strong preparation
What seems to go by itself at the event was prepared in the weeks before.
The intake call when you enquire.
Before anything is fixed: what does this event have to solve? Who are you, what is alive in the organisation that nobody says out loud, where does the sensitivity sit, and what may and may not be touched on stage? That conversation decides whether ianka is the right choice, and if so, where the day has to go.
One walk-through meeting.
The run-of-show from start to finish, with ianka's feedback on it: where there is too much, where a transition is missing, where a panel is the easy answer and where you actually need a conversation. For most events one session is enough. If the programme is complex or sensitive, there are more.
Contact with the speakers where it makes a difference.
Not with everyone, but with the ones who matter: a keynote speaker with a sensitive story, a panellist you need to get to know beforehand, someone who is visibly nervous. The rest she reads on the spot. Sizing people up in a few minutes — backstage, over coffee, in the first thirty seconds of a conversation — is a reflex from years of live work, and it is more reliable than a questionnaire.
On the day itself none of it is visible. That is exactly the point.
What organisers say
“Quote 1 — a congress. One or two sentences in the organiser's own words.”
Book ianka for your event
ianka moderates in English and Dutch, on location, hybrid or for livestream. From an internal moment with thirty people to a congress hall with more than a thousand. Podcast recordings too, live or as a series.
An enquiry moves fastest if you include the date, the type of event, the audience, and what the day has to deliver. You get an answer within two working days, also when it isn't a fit.