Organisations keep searching harder for people, while a large part of the potential is already there. I show how AI and skills make that talent visible, how you organise work more intelligently, and how you bring people along in the change that comes with it.
Two minutes of energy, pace and audience in the showreel. Below, the full keynote: AI, work and organisational change, made for executives and HR leaders who want to understand what’s really changing.
“Laurens brings energy and clarity into the room. During our HR & AI session he kept everyone engaged with concrete, recognisable examples.”
I don’t believe we have a staff shortage. I believe we have an organisational problem.
Most organisations have long known, rationally, what’s needed. The real challenge lies in behaviour, control and collaboration, and AI ruthlessly exposes that tension. Which is why scarcity isn’t solved by recruiting harder, but by different choices about tasks, skills and deployment.
My favourite example. On paper: a completely different job. In skills: 80% overlap. Once you look at tasks and potential instead of diplomas and job titles, you suddenly see thousands of matches like this. That’s the story I tell on stage, with the evidence to back it up.
Everything I talk about falls under one of these three signature stories. I fill them in with examples from healthcare, government, corporates and 8vance.
How AI and skills make hidden potential visible: from diploma to proof, from vacancy to skill.
Read more → 02What changes once AI doesn’t just advise, but acts, and what that asks of HR.
Read more → 03Why transformation rarely stalls on technology, but on behaviour, control and leadership.
Read more →Want more depth on Agentic HR? Watch the webinar on YouTube.
Carrying a room of 800 people is a craft. Getting a board to ask deeper questions is another. I do both, with the same energy, the same story and examples from the daily practice of 8vance, healthcare, government and corporates.
talks delivered, from boardroom to conference hall
international stages, from UNLEASH World to Zukunft Personal
talent ecosystems guided in healthcare, government, education and business
Laurens makes topics like AI and skills-based working both accessible and inspiring, with great energy and directly applicable insights.
Laurens connects technology and people, and creates space for open conversation and new perspectives.
At the previous speaker I was still answering emails — during your talk I didn’t look at my phone for a second. What a pace, what a density of insight. A delightful waterfall of ideas.
I started out as an organisational and intervention consultant: someone who wants to understand how systems work, and how you get them moving. In 2014 I founded Part-up, a platform where work revolved around tasks instead of job titles; using that same thinking, I also advised the Dutch House of Representatives on the platform economy. In 2021 we sold the company.
Along the way I hit a burnout myself, and learned that change is never purely rational. I carried that experience into 8vance, where AI makes visible, every day, the talent organisations can’t see themselves. I’d rather tell that story not as a CV, but as something personal.
Read my story →
What if the quality of our society is mostly determined by the quality of the matches we make? I’m writing this book in the open; you can already read along at theartofmatching.com.
A keynote, conference moderation or a session with your board: tell me about your event and I’ll immediately think along about the format.
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