Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 1988. Living now in Maassluis (small city close to Rotterdam), with my wife and son.
Growing up having a dad who always worked (and still works) at the first job he got. He never really boasted or talked about his work. I always got the sense from him that work is just something you must do, and it wasn't going to be that much fun.
So I postponed my working age as far in to the future as I could. Studying 8 years after high school.
From international business study to psychology, graduating as an Industrial- and Organizational Psychologist. In my final year, I did a thesis on perceived transparency and if that would have effects on the work engagement of the employees. 16 organizations joined in. I benchmarked them. And what I found was exactly that: more transparency means more engagement. After graduating I did final presentations at the companies that were researched. One of them was Keytoe, in Maassluis. They offered me a job there. And because it was small at the time and they were already a bit rebellious, I thought I'd join.
I started working as a projectmanager at Keytoe in 2014. At the time a small website-developing company of 7 people.
During my final bachelor year in Psychology, before moving on to my Masters, I stumbled upon an interview with Ricardo Semler about his company Semco. And I was blown away. This wasn't work, like I basically was raised on what work would be. The employees had freedom to do whatever they thought was good. My world turned upside down. And I knew that I wanted to implement these ideas into a company and take it further even.
With those ideas in mind, I was able to implement a lot of them into Keytoe alongside the growth. Making it now one of the most experimental organizations out there. From people deciding on their own salary, hiring themselves to full transparency and colleagues firing each other if necessary. I wrote a book about it (99 Problems But The Boss Ain't One), have a podcast (Hoe dan?!) and write numerous articles about the way that we work at Keytoe nowadays. And how organizations we've touched do it. The demand for having someone that consults on this free way of working went up, and I decided along with one of the two founders of Keytoe, to start a spin off firm that just does that: KeytoeY. Cedric (the founder) and I do a lot of public speaking on the subject and advice different organizations on how to change to a more transparent and free and therefore more agile organization (without all the agile working methods).
Another thing we started is KeytoeAcademy.com. An e-learning platform where we shared our own ideas in a video course, but also get in Dutch speakers and experts on different topics that are relevant for the future of work and organizations. Feel free to take a look.
