After writing the Who-piece for my website, I felt the need to offer more depth for those interested in understanding the journey that has shaped my approach to transformation. While the website captures a high-level overview, there is much more beneath the surface - layers of experience, insight, and reflection - that have led me to this moment. As we navigate an uncertain and often unstable world, the need for fresh perspectives and deeper connections has never been more important.

Growing up in the north of The Netherlands, I was immersed in a landscape shaped by the last ice age, where traces of ancient history still linger. This environment instilled in me an early understanding of something many spend a lifetime remembering: we are not separate from the world around us. We are nature, and we belong to something greater. Our well-being is closely tied to the health of the environment, each other, and the systems we are part of.

This early awareness guided my path into hospitality, where I studied hotel management. It was here that I began to see organisations not as isolated entities but as systems built by humans, intended to serve humanity. This insight - one that remains central to my work today -helped me realise that the true purpose of any organisation lies in its ability to serve people and foster meaningful connections for conversations that matter.

As my career evolved, I stepped into various organisational worlds - commercial businesses, NGOs, non-profits, and education. Each brought its own challenges but also revealed a profound truth: beneath every system, there are human dynamics at play. I learned to look beyond surface-level interactions and understand the underlying drivers of behaviour, both within the organisations and the broader systems they operate within. I saw how each system flourishes when we care for the people and environment that sustain it.

When I joined Microsoft The Netherlands, I was tasked with leading social innovation - a role I eventually held after several years of evolving responsibilities. This was not just about remote work or new technologies and its impact on society; it was about exploring how we could work across boundaries, systems, and silos to create a more connected and purposeful approach to our daily work. Long before the pandemic normalised remote work, we were already experimenting with ways of working that transcended time and place, recognising that time and place no longer had to be the primary drivers of how we work and collaborate. It was about creating systems that serve not just organisations, but the broader community and the planet as well.

This desire to push boundaries continued when I founded RabbleInc. and co-founded the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA). WBA was set up as a small NGO with a big ambition: to hold the 2,000 most influential companies accountable for their impact on society and the planet. More than just a accountability mechanism, WBA is a global organisation built from the ground up, rooted in the principles of living systems—a regenerative alternative to the extractive ways many organisations operate. You might call it TEAL. I call it essential. We were building a fast-growing, values-driven organisation with people from across the globe—working on benchmarks designed to serve the UN global goals.

Then came a pause. The noise and pace of the world made me want to withdraw. There were moments when I considered stepping away entirely from the working world. But in the quiet that followed, I realised I still had something to offer—not to fix the world, but to share what I had learned along the way—gently, clearly, and in service. I also came to the realisation that embodiment is the only way to thrive and lead in today’s world. This led me to return in 2025 to revive RabbleInc., to guide people and organisations, and to take on new projects, including joining Life Projects, where I trained in the embodiment of alchemy. Alchemy, to me, is not just an intellectual pursuit - it is a practice, a way of being and living that is deeply tied to transformation. It’s a path of understanding and experiencing learning and development, not just as a concept, but as a lived reality.

This journey through systems, stories, mind, body, and soul is what I bring. It’s not about titles or formulas - it’s about lived experience. The lessons learned, the connections made, and the insights gained along the way all shape how I approach leadership, transformation, and service in this ever-evolving world. And at its core, this journey is about recognising the interconnectedness of everything - our well-being, our environment, and the relationships that sustain us.