Speakers
Andrea Martins, director and co-founder of ExpatWomen.com, comprehensive, global website dedicated to helping women living overseas. ExpatWomen.com’s mission is to inspire your success abroad by providing you with a first-stop website to share stories, network globally, develop personally and find the best resources.
Anna has been coordinating the borrel since 2005. She enjoys searching out new restaurants, cocktail bars and exploring the Netherlands. She welcomes all suggestions to share in your favorite places. Member suggestions brought us all over Amsteram and as far as Enschede, Paris and London! By daytime Anna is a research and development chemist specializing in hardware and software debugging. She has been recently involved in quality control and quality assurance for an instrumentation manufacturer but her personal life required (1) a sabbatical and (2) relocation to Friesland: summer is coming and she is a passionate sail racing crew. Her specialty is trimming the spinnaker and winning races! focus focus focus concentrate concentrate concentrate hold your course
Since young Antoinette van Alphen has been interested why people act as they do, what motivates and inspires them. Why some are unhappy and others very successful. From her studies in psychology to her travels around the world and her studies of various cultures, Antoinette developed programmes for international organisations as an Outdoor Management trainer. With much enthusiasm she teaches managers understanding, respect, appreciation and skills to cooperate with cultures all over the world. She has since taken over the Management Training Centre Outward Bound and changed the name to
MTC Outdoor Europe. Besides training programmes as Teambuilding, Cultural change and Leadership she develops new concepts and programmes like Energy Management and Professional Intuition. Since 15 years Antoinette follows and organizes training programmes in the field of intuition, reading and healing. These spiritual trainings, studies and experiences do finally offer satisfying answers.
Catherine Gray is the founder of the Amsterdam-based internet marketing firm
Coppervine BV. She advises on internet marketing in telecoms, finance and other sectors in eastern and western Europe and North America. Coppervine's approach centers around clear communication based on an understanding of your audience's perspective. Before founding Coppervine, Catherine came to Amsterdam to expand e-learning software firm
Blackboard's professional services into Europe. Her background combines marketing, software development, communications, and graphic design. She holds the M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from
M.I.T. Active in the Amsterdam business community, she has served on the Board of Directors of the
Amsterdam American Business Club.
Clara is an IT Architect at
Royal Bank of Scotland with extensive experience working in various sectors such as banking, energy, content management, and embedded software.
She is co-founder of
Duchess, an organization connecting women in Java technology, and has spoken on the importance of recruiting more women into technology. She is passionate about using technology to innovate and connect people.
Since becoming VP Online Communications for EuropeanPWN Amsterdam, Clara has built an IT strategy that includes introducing online technology to improve the network's ability to communicate with its members and sponsors. Her work includes this website and a monthly electronic newsletter. Clara gave the
first talk in the
Web 2.0 series and wrote
an article on women's role in the future in IT.
Diana van Maasdijk is the founder and principal consultant of Philian. For larger projects, Philian calls upon its network of national and international consultants.
Diana van Maasdijk is an experienced consultant with over 13 years practice in the philanthropic sector. She has worked in fundraising, communications, grant making and program development for several non-profits and foundations in different sectors. Prior to founding Philian she worked in Senegal, Ecuador, the USA and the Netherlands with various organisations on issues pertaining to reproductive health, women’s empowerment, poverty alleviation, and social justice.
Diana holds a BA from Hamilton College and an MA in International Development from American University.
In 1985 she started her career as a human resources consultant in Bangkok, Thailand. Upon her return to the Netherlands (1995) she initially worked as a trainer/consultant with a focus on appraisal systems (Breda). Later she joined an international headhunter in Amsterdam. In January 1999 she started her own agency in Amsterdam. Her services focus on diversity and crosscultural management. She applies different systems to make individuals aware of their preferred styles of behaviour and patterns in decision making, against the backdrop of organizational goals and team dynamics. Since January 2003 she operates from Zwolle.
Eleonore Breukel is Managing Director of Intercultural Communication BV, an intercultural training and coaching firm. She assists global organizations and their people to develop cultural intelligence and enhance professional effectiveness in working in an international environment with multicultural clients and colleagues. Eleonore frequently speaks at conferences and gives guest lectures. She published over a 100 culture related articles, authored a book on ‘How to do business in 19 countries’ and coauthored The Cultural Detective The Netherlands, an intercultural training tool used by leading global organizations.
Fons Trompenaars studied Economics at the Free University of Amsterdam and later earned a Ph.D. from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on differences in conceptions of organizational structure in various cultures. He experienced cultural differences firsthand at home, where he grew up speaking both French and Dutch, and then later at work with Shell in nine countries.
Fons joined Shell in 1981 and moved into the Personnel Division for Shell in Rotterdam. From 1985, he worked in job classification and management development at the Shell Research Laboratories in Amsterdam. In 1989 he founded the Centre for International Business Studies, a consulting and training organization for international management. Since 1998 he operates as Trompenaars Hampden-Turner.
Fons Trompenaars has worked as a consultant for Shell, BP, ICI, Philips, Heineken, TRW, Mars, Motorola, General Motors, Nike, Cable and Wireless, CSM and Merrill Lynch.
He is an award winning, best selling author, and trainer.
Gerdie van den Bergh is a communication trainer and bodymind/voice coach. She developed her communication skills in both her work as a policewoman in Rotterdam and parallel as a body worker in her own practice. She worked 20 years as the only woman in a male team and learned in this period how to handle gender communication. Her passion is to connect people and teach them to bridge differences.
Helma has a degree in law made an impressive career in the technology industry. Currently, she is Head of the department of sustainable energy at
Essent, one of the largest players on the Dutch energy market, and will speak about the obstacles that women, in particular those with a scientific background, have to overcome when deciding on a career in the technology sector.
Hollis co-founded Auberon, growth strategy consultants in February 2001, where she served as Managing Director until closing the business at the end of 2008 to make room for other passions in business-, creative- and not-for-profit- areas.
Hollis has significant international experience in a wide variety of sectors, primarily consumer goods- and technology- related businesses, helping multinational clients with a full range of strategic growth challenges, innovation and implementation. She spent six years as a member of the McKinsey Alumni Board/ Max Geldens Foundation for Societal Renewal Board and served on the Philips DAP Innovation Board during its start-up year.
Ira studied Actuarial Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. She graduated in 1997 and has joined Mercer directly after graduation. Ira Badrising is a full member of Het Actuarieel Genootschap, the Dutch Society of Actuaries.
Her main focus of work currently is advising (industry wide) pension funds and corporate clients on pensions in the Netherlands taking into account corporate finance considerations, risk appetite, funding, benefits and accounting. Ira also advises clients on pension aspects when buying and selling businesses. She has worked on both local and international deals. Currently one of her responsibilities is being a member of the Expert Team of the Virtual Center of Excellence for the expertise field of iRFM and of Mergers & Acquisitions.
Jackie Cuthbert is the Vice President Global Recruitment & Learning at Royal DSM N.V. She started her career in her homeland UK where she held various senior HR positions in Retail, Merchant Banking and the ICT industry (Sainsbury’s, Credit Suisse and Unisys). Having worked amongst others in the US and Germany, Jackie moved to the Netherlands when she joined DSM in 2002. Jackie’s career focus has primarily been on establishing best practice performance management programs to develop and retain highly skilled resources within international businesses. Her current responsibilities also include Diversity and Change Management in DSM.
Jo Parfitt, author of 26 books, publisher, journalist and editor. Since 2002 she has helped more than 50 budding authors get into print. Some of them made it to Amazon bestseller status. To find out more about Jo go to www.joparfitt.com and pick up her free report '50 Steps to a Book in Your Hand.'
Jo Parfitt, Writer, Teacher, Speaker and Writers' Mentor shares what she knows to help others to grow. Looking for inspiration? Sign up to her Inspirer newsletter, read her blog and catch her on Twitter
skype: summertimejo
Twitter: www.twitter.com/JoParfitt
Blog: http://expatrollercoaster.wordpress.com
Jolanda Prijs is director at
FranklinCovey, Netherlands, a global company on leadership and organizational development. Based on the leadership philosophy of Stephen Covey, FranklinCovey has developed a portfolio of services on leadership. Well known is his international bestseller “The 7 habits of Highly Effective people” that sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
Jolanda started her career after law school as a tax inspector and manager. Soon she discovered that working with people and organizations was her true passion. Therefore, Jolanda decided to make a remarkable career shift and joined FranklinCovey in 2002, where she is now the managing partner and is also working with several clients herself.
Josepha fills her days with teaching clinics both national and international, writing for several Equine magazines, teaching courses at Horse Academy from Biomentor in The Netherlands, designing her own Tack line for Equihof as well as managing her own Bitless Tack Shop. She is also a founder of Art of Natural Dressage - an international forum with a unique philosophy and way of training in which the horse becomes the educational Master. Josepha is known for keeping the audience hooked, entertained and leaving with food for thought years to come.
Julie Gilbert founded the
WOLF program while she was Senior Vice President at
Best Buy. Through her leadership in WOLF, Best Buy increased female market share by more than $3.6 billion, increased the number of female job applicants by 37 percent, and reduced female employee turnover by 5.7 percent. Recently, she turned her attention to spreading the WOLF idea throughout the U.S and Europe with another initiative called
www.wolfmeansbusiness.com. She will continue to try to build a global network of women reinventing business and growing leaders. Events and upcoming keynote speeches will be posted on
the WOLF group on Facebook.
Mary Jane Roy is a Canadian living in the Netherlands since 1993. After graduating in 1974 (RN diploma) she nursed for 7 years including 4 years as a military nursing officer. From 1982 she worked in sales & marketing functions primarily within the fitness branch. Between 1997 to 2007 together with her husband they helped establish one of the largest fitness chains in the Netherlands.
In 2006 Mary Jane came to the conclusion that stress was taking its toll and she had developed some rather serious heart health issues. From 2005 - 2007 she followed the NLP Practioners and Masters training, principally to gain personal insights. In 2007 while on a sabbatical to regain her health and find her passion in life, she successfully completed the Stress Management Coaching training at Sonnevelt Training. However, she was too late to prevent a bout with breast cancer which has changed her life forever. This evening she will share with us relevant information about the effects of stress and introduce us to HeartMath’s ® self-regulation techniques and tools for coping better with stress. These have become her constant companion and therein she found something to be passionate about. In 2009 she became a HeartMath® provider and coach for their Stress Reduction Program. Her passion is helping others learn to manage their stress and emotions more effectively and to stay healthy. The consequences of poorly managed stress and emotions can be devastating.
Find out more at www.creatingwaves.nu
Melissa Raczak is an American living in the Netherlands for over 12 years, a Mother of two Daughters, and is working full time as a director in one of the top professional service organizations. Her agenda and ambitions over the years have increased the level of stress and the pressures from family, friends, work, and from herself lead her to a stress related illness that physically took a toll on her body and mind. This illness was her wake up call to change. She is back and ready to share her experience and create awareness about the physical and mental impact that stress can cause. Her story will inspire you to work with the daily stress and leave you with practical tips that can change your life by increasing your energy and vitality forever.
Michelle is founding partner of Jupiter Consulting Group and has been able to apply her considerable blue-chip experience, gained in a wide variety of human resource roles, to make a real impact on the people side of her clients’ businesses. She has worked as an internal and external organizational consultant, trainer and manager. Michelle focuses on employee relationship management and is passionate about engaging employees through her innovative approach. Her strengths lie in listening to her intuition (which is usually right on target!), being able to simplify complex issues, working collaboratively and bringing creative, fun and pragmatic solutions to the table.
Mieke Damen, currently Vice President Operations at
Mexx Europe, started her impressive career at
Nike in 1980 when she joined the company at its very early start in Europe. She quickly developed with the company and held different positions in sales and operations, both in Holland and in the US. When Mieke received the offer to work for Mexx in 1985, the company was still in its baby shoes which gave her the amazing opportunity to work with the original founders and grow with the company. Over the years Mieke assumed a wide variety of functions in areas like sales, customer service, procurement and logistics.
In 2006 she was promoted to the board of Mexx Europe Holding as Vice President Operations and is currently responsible for all administrative and physical flows of orders and Mexx products.
In addition to her demanding job, Mieke has two passions: improving the world of logistics via innovation and creating more diversity in the world of logistics as well as at board levels by helping women in their professional development. These two passions are reflected in many of her side activities in advisory boards, networks and as a member of the Commissie van Laarhoven.
Mrs. Prof. dr. Mijntje Lückerath is full professor Corporate Governance at Nyenrode Business University and is also associate professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on the role of the board of directors, corporate governance and corporate board diversity. She is the author of the annual Dutch Female Board Index and co-author of the annual Dutch ‘National Non-executive Directors survey and a Code of Conduct for Non-executive directors.
She graduated in 1994 with a masters degree in Financial Business Economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Afterwards she started as management trainee with Rabobank International. In her last assignment with Rabobank International she was Vice-President Project Finance and mainly active with tax driven lease transactions. Since 2001 she has been Assistant/Associate Professor at the Erasmus University within the Master of Financial Law department. Her PhD-thesis concerned the usefulness of the decisions of the (operating) lease accounting standard. She is also a supervisory boardmember of the investment funds of the ASN Bank ( a large Dutch sustainable bank).
Nancy McKinstry, appointed CEO of Wolters Kluwer in 2003, engineered a successful transformation of Wolters Kluwer into a forward-looking, customer-focused organization for professionals in the areas of legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare. She is leading the organization as it carries out its 2010-2012 strategy for Maximizing Value for Customers. She has been included in leading lists as one of the most powerful women in business, including Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women, Fortune's Global 50 Powerful Women in Business, and Financial Times Top 50 Women in World Business.
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Raised in Paris, Nicky has been living in and out of France for the past 15 years, has never (ever!) shopped outside her hometown, or given up on her French eating habits. Like most Parisians, she knows the capital’s shops, current styles and future trends. On weekdays Nicky is an INSEAD MBA graduate and internet entrepreneur, currently launching wondersale.nl, a promotions and discounts webshop that activates on key calendar dates such as Sinterklaas, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Paul Meerts’ background is political science and international law and he has much experience in dealing with political and international negotiations. What drives his passion and success in international negotiations is a deep empathy for human relationships and intercultural differences. For many years he has been affiliated with the Institute Clingendael in The Hague. As co-founder of Clingendael he has been Director of the Department of Training and Education and Deputy Director of the Institute. Next to that Paul is visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, the University of Economics in Prague, and the UNESCO Institute for Water Education in Delft. Paul’s research focuses on the evolution of diplomatic negotiation, the synergy between warfare and negotiations as well as on the impact of external actors on internal processes.
Currently, he trains diplomats, civil servants, military officers and university students in theory and practice of the international negotiation process. Paul Meerts is specialized in interstate negotiations, political analysis and currently works mainly South Caucasus and Central Asia.
A selection of Paul’s articles can be found under: http://www.clingendael.nl/staff/?id=46
Paula, an Australian businesswoman, set up O'Connell Marketing after moving to work in the Netherlands with an international company, and then falling in love with the place and the people.
Setting up her own business has allowed Paula to fulfill her passion for both marketing and recruitment.
"I worked in product marketing before moving into the recruitment industry more than 10 years ago" says Paula. "Having that history in marketing myself has been the ideal background for specialising in recruitment of marketing professionals."
Pauline van der Lee began her company Attitude Creations in 2007. Meditation and spiritual study have been a part of her life since her youth and have become her inner compasses of wisdom, giving her peace and clarity in her head and heart. Her passion? To give universal values meaning in the practical, everyday world. To bring people in touch with their essential personal values and to work through any challenges using awareness and movement as the central focus.
Pauline recognizes that universal feminine values such as patience, compassion, sustenance, and tolerance matter in business when balanced with the more masculine values. These values are inherent for personal growth and developing relationships in a caring society. Often stress is created when we aren’t aware of our own personal values or when we feel these values aren’t being respected.
To help us (re)connect Pauline is going to introduce us to Nia Fusion Fitness and her program ‘Move your values’. It is all about physical and mental vitality with a fascinating combination of dance movements, martial arts, and the healing arts and where the participant is free from any performance anxiety. Movement and reflection are used to get in touch with our masculine and feminine values, to connect with ourselves and with others. With surprising and fun elements you’ll find that to move as a team creates teamwork and network , though it’s the personal experience which counts. From beginner to top-athlete, anyone can partake. Whether for yourself personally, or in your work as an independent contractor, trainer, coach, or your company team, Nia is the ideal energizer.
For more info: http://www.attitudecreations.com
Peter is a golf-pro since 1966. He has twice been recognized as the reigning Dutch National Golf Champion and has played on the European Tour Circuit. Since 1984, Peter is also a professional golfing instructor.
Marketing Director Central Europe and Emerging Markets at
Adobe Systems and has successfully dealt with a wide array of critical situation during her impressive career in the IT sector. Regina has more than 20 years of marketing experience and held various marketing management positions at IT companies like
Avid Technology and
Siebel Systems in which she gathered a broad experience within Field- as well as Corporate Marketing. In addition to that she developed new markets in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Reini van Leeuwen acquired a degree from Delft University of Technology and then started her career as a naval architect for – at that time – the largest Dutch ship building company. Having received her law degree from Leiden University she then joined Shell as a patent attorney trainee. With a qualification as a Dutch and European patent attorney she first worked in the patent team of Shell’s Intellectual Property Services team where she dealt with all aspects of patent generation, prosecution, maintenance as well as opposition procedures. Currently, Mrs. van Leeuwen is managing counsel Intellectual Property for the Shell Group.
Richard Kwakernaak is the founder Institute for Communication Psychology and Transformation (ICPT). He graduated from Naval Academy with a specialization in Human Resources Management and founded the Institute for Communication Psychology and Transformation (ICPT) after fourteen years in active service of the Royal Netherlands Navy. During that time Richard acquired a vast amount of experience of communication in male dominated environments which he now also passes on in his work with various national and international companies and a number of seminars that he teaches for the military, especially at NATO’s Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence.
A lawyer in The Netherlands, Rieke studied in Utrecht, and began her career with the firm Baker & McKenzie, before opening up her own law firm in Hilversum together with her business partner under the name Oostwaard Advocaten. Her experience includes all phases of preventing and solving domestic and international corporate and commercial disputes. Rieke Smakman is Dutch and mother of two.
Sagar Simon has been practicing the work of Byron Katie since 1999.
He has a Masters Degree in counseling and has also trained as a Gestalt Therapist, and a Hypnotherapist.
He loves to join others on their journey to find inner peace, and to find space from stressful thoughts. He knows what its like to feel rejected and lost and to come out on the other side. His focus is to work with people intensely, on a short-term basis. He specializes in working with all kinds of relationships and mediation within small businesses. He would like to join you in finding your way back to a kinder, peaceful and respectful place within you.
Shannon Jones is Marketing and Category Director for Starbucks Coffee Company Europe, Middle East & Africa. She has been with Starbucks for over 10 years in various marketing roles in the U.S. and international. For the past 4 years she has lead marketing and product in the EMEA region from their EMEA headquarters and roasting plant in Amsterdam.
Stephanie Ward is the Marketing Coach for Entrepreneurs and founder of Firefly Coaching (2002). She is passionate about helping Small Business Owners attract more clients and grow their businesses! If you’d like to attract more clients, be sure to grab your FREE copy of the special report: ‘7 STEPS TO ATTRACT MORE CLIENTS IN LESS TIME’ plus a bonus of free Business Building Tips at: http://www.fireflycoaching.com. There are loads of practical marketing tips on her blog http://www.fireflycoaching.com/blog.
Founder & CEO Goldswolf, a former Olympic swimmer, Susan has more than twenty years experience in large multinationals, having worked at senior management levels for Japanese (
Hitachi), American (
American Digital) and European (
Tetra Pak) corporations across a range of industry areas. Her most recent corporate role was as Vice President, Communications, Tetra Pak International before she founded Goldswolf, a company specialized in change management, leadership communications and executive coaching. Since 2004, Susan has also been an executive coach at
IMD Business School, Switzerland.
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Vanessa Borchers has 18 years of experience with
Deloitte,
serving a variety of clients and industries. During this time she
has also successfully focused on a number of strategic talent
initiatives. Vanessa is currently an Enterprise Risk Services
partner in the Dutch practice and was appointed Talent Partner
in 2008.
Petra Rudolf is a Professor of Experimental Solid State Physics of the University of Groningen.
