My Story

Sailing.

Teambuilding.

Social Media Marketing & Personal Branding.

Storytelling.

Mentoring/Coaching.

Culture Design.

…

Confused by all this diversity? Don’t worry, it all makes sense to me. If you find any of this interesting, please have a read below or send me an email via lena.weisskichel@gmail.com.

Having a huge passion for sailing and the ocean, my long-term ambition is to work in sailing and become a role model inspiring other women to claim their place in this industry and bring my lessons learned form the sport into the business world.

2023-today

Crew | Formula 18 | Team Nacra with Ravi Parent

Aiming to become the first mixed team to win the F18 World Championship.

Not only are we a mixed team with me crewing in a highly physical boat, but we are also boyfriend and girlfriend. This comes with multiple challenges but also keeps things interesting and makes for many learnings and stories that I can use in my keynotes, workshops and coaching!

With our F18 program Ravi and I want to encourage female sailors to join the F18 class. We are working on a small jib proposal for the class to promote smaller/lighter teams. Currently the minimum class crew weight is 150kg and if you are underweight teams have to carry corrector weight. With a smaller jib rule lighter teams would be allowed to compete without having to carry corrector weights and would have more fun and perform better in windy conditions maintaining control of the boat.

Mentor | The Magenta Project

Member | belong community for culture design

In 2022 I almost burned out and not from an office job, but from the very sport that I love with great passion! After that I took a bit of a break from sailing and did a lot of research into psychological safety and how to design a team/work/organizational environment/culture that I could thrive in. Meaning: Performing at my personal best for a long time without burning myself out again. In the process I found the belong community by Eva-Maria Zoll and Karim Mustaghni – a great place to learn, exchange and network all things culture design!

2022-today

Head of Content | Janssen & Team / Perspektiv Consulting GmbH

Ambassador | Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals Ltd

Raising awareness for photo damage & skin cancer.

Studying International Management for athletes | University of Applied Sciences Ansbach

2023

Teambuilding Workshop & Sailing on Lake Constance with an M&A Team from DZ Bank

As a speaker & coach I help corporate organizations build stronger, healthier, happier and more sustainable teams. First we talk about concepts of teambuilding paired with compelling stories from the world of sailing, then we go on the water so the participants can experience the concepts for themselves.

Successful sailing is like professional M&A consulting.

We learned this at the teambuilding event with the Stuttgart M&A team of DZ BANK AG. For example, no two days are the same in the M&A business as well as in sailing. You always have to adapt to new situations (In sailing, we say it’s like playing chess, except that the chessboard gets flipped upside down every now and then). M&A experts at DZ BANK often work on different projects in different teams at the same time – just like many sailors (including me), who are on many different boats and in different teams throughout the season.

This makes me wonder which other industries have parallels with sailing. Which ones can you think of? If you are interested in the topic in more detail, please send me an email.

Crew | Nacra17 | Try Out for LA28

Keynote „Learnings from High Performance Sailing“ at Boot Düsseldorf

Good Stories are what changes people’s minds and what ultimately changes our society. I use my storytelling talent and my experience in producing authentic content to share my experiences and inspire others and especially female sailors to follow their dreams. My platforms are Social Media, my Blog, and keynote speaking (for example at Boot Düsseldorf in 2023). Reflecting and speaking about my journey and that of the teams that I am a part of makes for great content.

2021-2023

Navigator | Clubswan50 | Niramo

• 2023 World Championship 4th
• 2023 Copa del Rey 2nd
• 2021 The Nations Trophy 1^st
• 2021 Copa del Rey 3^rd

2021–2022

Mentee | The Magenta Project

Social Media Marketing Consulting | self-employed 

Crew | 49er Fx | „Girls for Paris“ Campaign for Paris Olympics 2024

• learned how to build a professional Olympic Sailing Campaign from scratch
• juggled the mental load of being my own manager alongside the physical & mental demands of being an athlete

2021

Skipper/Navigator + Project Initiator | Dehler 30 all female Crew

• helped founding the Offshoreseglerinnen Crew
• Initiation of the @offshoreseglerinnen Instagram Account to give Female German Offshore Sailors a platform
• Rund Bornholm 2^nd

Coming into big boat racing from Olympic sailing I realized how underrepresented women are in the sport (just like in many corporate environments). I wanted to change the narrative by letting bold actions speak. I also wanted to do something that would go beyond my own success in sailing. I wrote an essay on women in sailing as part of my Bachelors program and two articles on my blog. I organized a training and participation in the Round Bornholm Race on a Dehler 30 for 4 female sailors with little racing exposure in these kinds of boats, and our 2^nd place in that race made some big waves! After that I helped found the Offshoreseglerinnen network and facilitated the collaboration between the Float magazine and Offshoreseglerinnen which is now the German stream of the Magenta Project.

To this day this all fuels my motivation to perform well and to be a role model in environments that women are not deemed fit for.

2020–2021

Skipper/CoSkipper | Shorthanded Offshore Sailing

• coached several Dehler 30 owners
• competed in the Silverrudder – Challenge of the Sea (singlehanded)
• Int. German Championship ORC Doublehand 2^nd (1^st Mixed Team)
• Doublehanded Mixed European Championship 5th
• competed in the Baltic 500 Challenge
• Sailing on VO 60s in Rostock with 20 (top) managers from SAP

My first offshore experience was a 30hr doublehanded training in early May 2020 in the Baltic Sea with violent upwind beating during the night. My first race was a week later the Baltic 500. After a windy and freezing cold frontal night with steep waves in the Kattegat and broaching several times which many other competitors avoided by retiring from the race, we could not finish the race due to a design flaw in the boat that saw us with a breaking keel box. But we made the right decision and brought the boat to the next Harbour instead of inflicting further damage on a borrowed boat and entering a dangerous situation. After that my partner was worried that I didn’t want to do any more offshore sailing however, that regatta ignited a big passion in me. I started practicing 20min naps, sailing by myself, boathandling and learned everything that I could find about boat electronics, weather, routing and navigation. In 2021 that dedication paid off as I was recruited on a Clubswan 50 team as navigator.

2019

Sailed Laser, 49er FX & VX One in Australia

2018

Crew | Nacra 17 | Ipunkt Sailingteam

Crew | 49er Fx | German Sailing Federation

• U23 Junior World Championship 23^rd

2015–2018

Laser Radial | German Sailing Federation

2013–2015

Laser 4.7 | Sailing Federation Lower Saxony

2010–2013

Optimist | Sailing Federation Lower Saxony

2008

started Sailing at Lake Steinhuder Meer