These posts sit at the intersection of three things I keep returning to: leadership, technology, and the open road. Over a career that took me from boardrooms to development environments — across oil & gas, banking, insurance, and beyond — I have come to believe that the same qualities that make a great director make a great cyclist: judgment, endurance, and knowing when to push.
The name? I moved from Australia to India, married an Indian girl, and never quite left — in spirit at least. As a Dutch national with an OCI card and a life rooted between continents, “Our Man in India” was less a title I chose and more one that chose me.
Now that I have more time to reflect than to act, these are the things still worth writing about.
Today, July 13, marks exactly one month since I cycled in Srebrenica — a small village in the southeast of Bosnia & Herzegovina, near the Drina River that forms the border with Serbia. It’s also exactly 30 years since the Dutch UN battalion, Dutchbat, was forced by Serb forces to hand over the …
Read more →
After two years cycling in the Dolomites, I missed last years’ tour in the Pyrenees due to a bad fall in Goa. That had caused my family a lot of stress and me a lot of frustration of not being allowed to cycle by my doctor. The reason of my fall became never clear. I am still alive due to quick …
Read more →
Let me start with a bold statement: knowing HTML and CSS helps write much better JavaScript! Why you may ask. Well, you need to grasp the whole medium to appreciate the best approach. The what, where, how, issues etc. Vanilla JavaScript may appear daunting but it is not. Instead it is faster, more …
Read more →You start to work on a new project and you are happily coding away and seeing results until the number of functions, event listeners etc become too many and you have to clean up your own mess in a much more organized manner. You scratch yourself behind the ear and wonder why you did not do that …
Read more →
Why do you show up even when it’s hard? That was the title of a recent Strava post trying to explain the atlete in you. Reflecting on challenging events is important to moving forward. On the Italian border A couple of weeks ago, I had again joined the Tour de Tolerance, a group of cyclists …
Read more →
In any business environment these days you almost invariably have all your data in different systems. A single ERP may be the driving force behind your organisation but having a monolithic system also limits you. This is the reason I am very enthusiastic about Jamstack, a new standard architecture …
Read more →
The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters representing danger and opportunity respectively. Symbols of wisdom and extremely relevant with the current Covid-19 raging the world. On 1 January 2016, the 17 sustainability Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development …
Read more →
Like so often it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was more than fed up with cycling in the Dutch cold and grey wintry conditions and needed to de-stress from work related issues. My son Daniel was meant to join but he needed his time to study. Or so he said, perhaps suspect of my intentions. …
Read more →
In July 2019 I attended the Frontiers in Service conference at the National University of Singapore. At the time my role was Director Global Customer Services and I was keen to improve the quality delivered. There were several conferences but this one drew my interest as it was an academic …
Read more →
Dr Ian Lipkin As a CEO one has to be prepared for any wild card event, an event which rarely happens but one which could affect your business in a major way. Prof. Ian Lipkin of Colombia University started day 3 of the THiNK 2012 talking about just this. The risk of a viral pandemic is real and …
Read more →I don't use cookies for marketing! I use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized content, and analyze traffic. By clicking 'Accept All', you consent to my use of cookies. You can customize your preferences at any time.