Sylvia van Meerten

Sylvia van Meerten was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She earned her BA from Evergreen State College in Washington and a master’s degree in Psychology from Vermont College. Sylvia’s early career focused on youth programs, autism, and family counseling in the non-profit space. She built her career on the idea that all minds can contribute to high-level and important ideas, if we can design the right conversations.

Sylvia’s eclectic professional background ranges from founding a series of non-profit summer camps, to being a corporate leader at a global enterprise, to facilitating YPO forums of CEO’s. Additionally, Sylvia launched a psychology practice at age 25 that merged into her current business, ForumWithin, in 2021. Sylvia joined John Colburn (YPO Philadelphi) as a minority partner in ForumWithin. Together, their teams create and support business-focused peer groups to level up entire organizations. For Sylvia, this work is an extension of her focus on group conversations and how they move the needle toward or away from success.

Sylvia routinely has frank discussions with 10-12 high-level leaders a week, across a variety of industries. She absorbs the broader trends and insights that emerge from these conversations to inform the rest of her work, whether it be coaching, volunteering, facilitating or operating.