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The new space race for a better world
April 12 is the International Day of Human Space Flight. It marks the anniversary the first human space flight by Yuri Gargarin in 1961. What if we could repeat such a – previously deemed – incredible feat to apply our minds to help humanity thrive within the limits of our planet? We often hear astronauts talk…
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Shining bright: doing well by doing good
Meet Camille van Gestel, the co-founder and co-CEO of WakaWaka, a highly successful social enterprise with the mission to provide sustainable energy and light solutions for over a billion people who lack access to electricity. During the interview, he convinced me that he’s got plenty of energy himself to activate many to make this ambitious…
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Can accountants save the world?
Meet Wim Bartels, Global Head of Sustainability Reporting and Assurance at KPMG. “Accountants will save the world”, said Peter Bakker, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). If all accountants were as knowledgeable and passionate as Wim, that could really happen. Here’s what he told me about sustainability and change. Recognizing…
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Patents to protect or drive innovation?
What are patents all about? According to Wikipedia, a patent is a set of exclusive rights granted to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from commercially…
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Incremental behavior change – does it add up?
I have been so (happily) buried in two projects for Unilever, that I have not written a single blog post in weeks! One of the projects has behavior change at its core – a fascinating topic – so that’s the topic for this post as well. The beauty of being involved in such a project…
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The experiment with women in management
Flashback to 1993: I left immediately after a (French) general manager answered my question about women in management positions. It was a cold day in Chicago as I rode the train back to campus to file a complaint at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management career office against this man and his company. This company invited…
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Sustainable Investment in the Netherlands
“The fish rots from the head down” was the closing remark by a panelist at one of the events I joined on sustainable investment this week. He was referring to the crucial role of corporate leaders in creating culture that is both good for the company and the world. Perhaps it is time to change…
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Applying Kotter’s Leading Change against Climate Change
“Leading Change” by John Kotter, was written in 1995, but its eight step process for leading change in organizations is so clear and useful, that it is no surprise that three versions of it pop up on the first page of search results on Amazon when searching for books on change management. This blog post…
