I hold an MSc in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management from Delft University of Technology and trained in organisational intervention at Sioo. I am an entrepreneur and Chief Evangelist at 8vance. For more than twenty years, I have worked where technology, organisational change and work meet, guided by one recurring question: how can we give talent a fairer chance?
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While finishing my degree in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management at TU Delft, I joined Alares in 2005, an innovation and organisational consultancy. There I worked on change programmes where technology, policy and organisation meet.
In 2014 I founded Part-up, a cooperative marketplace where work revolved around tasks and contributions rather than fixed jobs. Part-up won the Finext New Organising Award in 2017, contributed to a Dutch parliamentary debate on the platform economy, and was sold in 2021.
Since 2023 I have been Chief Evangelist at 8vance, a Dutch-German AI scale-up for skills-based matching. There I work with organisations in healthcare, government, education and business on recruitment, internal mobility, skills and new ways of organising work.
That combination of technology and change expertise is the foundation of my work as a speaker: not only showing what becomes possible, but above all what organisations need to do differently to genuinely bring people along.
MSc in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management from Delft University of Technology. The foundation for my work at the intersection of technology, policy and organisations.
I joined Alares, an innovation and organisational consultancy, and became partner in 2013. Advisory work and change programmes around innovation, technology and new ways of organising. I took on more than 150 innovation and change assignments in total.
I founded a cooperative marketplace for work in tasks and projects. Winner of the Finext New Organising Award in 2017. I contributed to the debate in the Dutch House of Representatives on the platform economy. Sold in December 2021 to Amplooi, part of Prevermo. We crowdfunded €1 million and grew into an organisation of more than 50 freelancers.
I trained in organisational intervention: Intervening with Passion and Precision. It gave me a stronger foundation for the change work I do on stage and inside organisations.
I became Chief Evangelist at the Dutch-German AI scale-up for skills-based matching. Here I gain hands-on experience with talent mobility in healthcare, government, education and business.
I have given more than 300 talks, from the boardroom to international congresses. On AI, work, talent and the human side of change.
Laurens brings tireless energy to complex social issues and knows how to get to the heart of the problem. He is a pleasure to work with.
I work from one simple conviction: people are still too often judged on what they have done before, while their potential is far greater. Diplomas, job titles and CVs offer something to hold on to, but they also leave a lot of talent invisible.
That is why my work is about looking differently: at skills instead of only jobs, at potential instead of only the past, and at organisations as human systems instead of org charts.
Outside work, I am a father of three sons and usually have more ideas than time.
Keynote speaker, conference moderator, change expert and Chief Evangelist at 8vance.
UNLEASH World, HR Tech Europe, Zukunft Personal, Zorg & ICT, Digitaal Werven, HR Leaders Summit and many more.
From Netflix and a.s.r. to Radboudumc, Rijkswaterstaat and Center Parcs. In Dutch and English.
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