15 May Breathwork Workshop for VC firm Data Tech Fund — Ericeira, Portugal
In April, I spent a morning with the team at Data Tech Fund — a VC firm whose people are spread across the world and come together once a year for their annual offsite.
They’d been in cognitively demanding work for a few days. Vision, strategy, big-picture thinking. By the time I arrived, what they needed was the opposite of that: less thinking, more body.
What we did in this annual offsite breathwork workshop
This was a purely experiential, somatic breathwork session. No slides. Just an hour of slowing down and exploring what a healthy, functional breathing pattern actually feels like, and why it matters for everything from brain function to recovery to sleep.
The concept I most wanted them to walk away with was interoception—your brain’s ability to sense what’s happening inside your body. Heart rate, breath, muscle tension, gut activity. It’s a skill that’s massively undervalued, especially by highly cognitive, analytical people. And it’s increasingly backed by research as one of the most important capacities you can train for self-regulation, decision-making, and emotional resilience.
We spent more than an hour with our eyes closed, just feeling into the breath, the nervous system, and the sensory systems. One person was genuinely surprised it had been a full hour. Another said what struck him most was how much space there is to breathe; how, once you slow down, you notice you can breathe more deeply, into the back and the sides of your ribcage.
That’s not just a nice feeling. The more fully you can breathe, the more efficient the gas exchange—which feeds into recovery, sleep quality, and how sharp you feel the next day.
It’s the kind of work that lands particularly well for teams coming out of intense cognitive days (strategy offsites, planning retreats, leadership weeks) where what’s needed next isn’t another mental framework, but a different way to integrate on a deeper level.
What General Partner Stephan Goupille said afterwards:
“Charlotte delivered an exceptional session for our VC firm. For most of us, it was a first introduction to breathwork and she made it accessible, grounding the practice in clear, science-backed insights without overcomplicating it. The impact was tangible: we left calmer, more focused, and better equipped to handle the rest of our day. Charlotte has the ability to take something unfamiliar and turn it into a practical tool for high-performance teams. I would recommend her sessions to any leadership team looking to sharpen their edge.”
— Stephan Goupille, General Partner, Data Tech Fund
A bit about my breathwork and nervous system work
I’m a breathwork and nervous system coach based in Lisbon. My work is grounded in the physiology of breathing and nervous system regulation — translated into something practical and immediately usable for people with busy, demanding lives.
Most of what I do falls into three areas.
- I run corporate workshops and offsites for teams in tech, VC, and consumer brands — past work includes Google gTech, L’Oréal, and a range of investment and tech firms.
- I work 1:1 with executives, founders, and senior leaders who want to use their breath and body as tools for focus, calm, and resilience.
- And I run small-group retreats that combine breath training, freediving, and nervous system work in immersive formats.
I shape sessions around what the team actually needs: purely experiential like this one, or more structured around science and tools, depending on the context.
If you’re planning an offsite or a team day, you can browse my other workshops or get in touch.