Learning and leading in the past

As a master educated Industrial Designer from Delft University that graduated in 2001 on a future mobile internet service at TNO Telecom, I was skilled in innovation management, design, interaction, marketing and engineering. When I turned to teaching after graduation, I evolved myself in the field of education and later management and leadership. First at the vocational training institute Friese Poort as a teacher in interaction design, educational developer, manager and director.

Later, as a programme manager at the Hanze university of applied sciences, I had the privilege to learn and use my leadership skills to support, inspire and lead teams of forty-plus teachers, lecturers, researchers and support. Together we tried to create great and challenging education for up to eight hundred and more students in the fields of Human Resource Management and Communication & Multimedia Design.

Summer 2019, I finished the master module 'strategy and governance in a wicked world', where I deepened my expertise on complexity in combination with leadership. Enabling leadership, finding ways to engage people in working on the issues that affect their organisations and themselves. Being adaptive to emergence, chances and the future. But also making sure there is room for change by securing the administrative side.

In 2022 I switched to NHL Stenden university of applied science to become lecturer systems thinking and complexity next to being head of the team responsible for the master’s programs and professorship in the fields of Design Driven Innovation and Serious Gaming.

Empowering, trust, self-organisation and ownership next to analysing skills, inspiration, collective discovery, co-creation, seeing things differently and navigating complexity are elements by which I try to add value to the team and their purpose as a leader and facilitator.