Who is travelling

Albert Akkermans is CEO of Elysee Life, a Dutch provider of medically supervised weight-management programmes. The company combines GLP-1 medication with personal guidance on nutrition, movement and lifestyle, delivered through a network of treatment locations. Akkermans is also named by Elysee as the contact for its client council, which gathers feedback on service quality, accessibility and safety. His earlier healthcare work includes serving as CEO of MediCorps, a business providing workplace testing and support during the coronavirus pandemic.

Casper Bannet is founder and managing partner of One Two Capital, the Amsterdam investment firm he established with Arthur Wolff. Before becoming an investor, he founded and led Aethon, a healthcare employment and secondment business. That operating background is reflected in One Two Capital’s investments in professional-services companies, including its 2021 acquisition of a majority stake in Welten. The transaction brought together financial-sector staffing, professional education and digital learning, with capital reserved to support growth and further acquisitions.

Marco Barkmeijer is a co-founder and former CEO of SecureLink. He helped establish its Dutch operation in 2008 after building regional businesses for Infoblox and NetScreen/Juniper Networks. In 2018, he handed operational leadership to Thomas Fetten and moved to a non-executive board role. Orange acquired SecureLink the following year for an enterprise value of €515 million. At acquisition, the business employed more than 660 people and provided cybersecurity consulting, monitoring and incident-response services across seven European countries.

Maximilian Baro is managing partner of ArborEleven Ventures, a private investment company based in Salzburg. An engineering graduate, he is also listed as the company’s managing director. ArborEleven specialises in extended reality, digital twins and reality capture, technologies that connect physical environments with digital models. Its portfolio includes AMRAX, whose Metaroom technology digitises building interiors, and NXRT, which develops mixed-reality systems for automotive sales, engineering and training. The firm also backs Innerspace, working on risk reduction in pharmaceutical production.

Tristan Bierenbroodspot is a global logistics and supply chain executive with a career spanning investment banking, private equity and senior operating roles. He is setting up Atlas Supply Chain Capital, a specialist private equity platform that builds single-asset supply chain services businesses across six industries critical to society and the economy, starting with aerospace and healthcare. Most recently he was Group CEO of Share Logistics (2024-2026). Before that he spent five years at Hillebrand, the private equity-backed global leader in beverage logistics, first as Director of Global M&A and Corporate Development and then as Chief of Staff after its sale to DHL. He began his operating career as Group CFO of Share Logistics (2017-2019), joining from the private equity firm that backed the company. He also invests personally in early-stage technology companies.

Gijs Coppens is founder and CEO of OpenUp and a practising healthcare psychologist. His route into mental health began with engineering: he studied mechanical engineering and management of technology at Delft before completing clinical psychology training at Tilburg and professional training at RINO Noord-Holland. He co-founded OpenUp with Floris Rost van Tonningen. The platform gives employees access to psychologists and digital wellbeing tools through their employers, bringing together his technical education and experience in private practice and clinical care.

Daniel van Delft is CEO of Currence, the company behind iDEAL. He took the role in February 2021 to lead a renewal of the payment method’s technology and services, following a career that included serving as Visa’s country manager in the Netherlands. His work spans bank-based payments, digital wallets and the infrastructure connecting merchants and payment providers. Following the European Payments Initiative’s acquisition of Currence iDEAL in 2023, the business is preparing iDEAL’s transition to the European wallet Wero.

Frank van den Driest describes himself as Dutch-direct, passionate, pragmatic and empathetic. He believes meaningful progress starts with asking difficult questions and having the courage to act on the answers. After two decades founding and leading a global marketing advisory and five years co-founding the Institute for Real Growth, he now focuses on how business leaders can unlock the potential of AI while strengthening the human qualities that drive sustainable growth. Through A Frank Conversation and the Human Quotient (HQ) philosophy, he works with senior leaders on leadership, culture, capabilities and operating models. He has worked with CEOs and CMOs at Anheuser-Busch InBev, Unilever, Sony, Standard Bank and WD-40, co-authored two Harvard Business Review cover articles and the bestselling book The Global Brand CEO, and created the Humanizing Growth series with Fortune 500 CEOs. He is a member of the UNICEF Thought Leaders Network and holds several supervisory and advisory board roles.

Claudia Fenske leads WD-40 Company’s global brand and marketing organization. She joined in 2012 and has held roles across the company’s markets, from innovation development in the Americas to sales and marketing in Canada and the United States, most recently as vice president, global brand and innovation. Her appointment as chief brand and marketing officer was announced in June 2026, with the transition planned for the first quarter of the company’s 2027 financial year. Her remit covers consistent execution of the global brand strategy, building digital capability, and brand growth as AI reshapes how brands grow. She holds a master’s in international marketing and business from the University of San Diego and a bachelor’s in law from the University of Mannheim. Born in Bensheim, Germany, she moved to San Diego in 2001.

Gilbert Gooijers co-founded CM.com with Jeroen van Glabbeek in 1999 and serves as its chief operating officer and managing director. The business began as ClubMessage, sending group SMS updates to nightclub visitors in the Benelux. It later expanded into customer communications, payments and conversational AI, and listed on Euronext Amsterdam in 2020. Gooijers studied Technology Management at Eindhoven University of Technology and completed Nyenrode’s Advanced Management Program in 2009. His career spans the shift from mobile messaging to integrated digital customer engagement.

André Knüppel became CEO of Oda Group in February 2025 after serving as its chief operating officer. He joined the Norwegian online grocer, then called Kolonial.no, as COO in October 2017. His work has centred on the operational challenge behind online grocery: making picking, fulfilment and delivery economically sustainable. The group includes Oda in Norway and Mathem in Sweden. Alongside improving those businesses’ profitability, his stated priorities include offering Oda’s warehouse technology and operating model to other retailers through logistics-as-a-service.

Chris Kok is managing director of Aethon, which combines workforce technology with recruitment and training for sectors facing persistent staff shortages. In the company’s May 2025 funding announcement, he described removing barriers that prevent people from entering care and education, including insufficient training and inflexible working arrangements. Aethon secured €9.6 million from Endeit Capital to develop its technology and expand capacity. Its Aelio platform brings together recruitment, matching, scheduling, supplier management and compliance, while training programmes help create additional qualified workforce capacity.

Nick Leijten has a background in global financial markets. He spent more than twelve years on the trading floor of a leading Dutch technology- and research-driven trading firm with a global presence. Since leaving the firm in 2023, he has focused on investing personally in early-stage technology companies. He is also an investment advisor to Atlas Supply Chain Capital.

Elisabeth L’Orange is a partner in Artificial Intelligence & Data at Deloitte, following an entrepreneurial career at the intersection of technology and finance. In 2020 she co-founded Hamburg-based Oxolo, an AI video production company, where she served as chief commercial officer. Her earlier work included venture capital and CFO responsibilities. At Deloitte she focuses on the practical conditions for adopting AI, particularly structured, usable data as a prerequisite for scaling. She also hosts Tech & Tales, a podcast exploring technology and innovation.

Jan Marius Marquardt is a software entrepreneur and venture partner at Endeit Capital. He founded and led COYO, later Haiilo, bootstrapping the employee communications business before its sale to Marlin Equity Partners. He continued as CEO through acquisitions and expansion into the United States. In late 2023 he co-founded Zive with Piers Wermbter to make internal company knowledge searchable and accessible through AI. Docebo acquired Zive in 2026. Marquardt also co-founded coding bootcamp provider Neue Fische, extending his work into technology skills and reskilling.

Arjen Paardekooper is a corporate lawyer, entrepreneur and founder of Blenheim and HUNT Dealmakers. As Blenheim’s managing partner, he leads work on acquisitions, investments, shareholder disputes and cross-border transactions. MKB Fonds credits him with supervising more than 200 transactions and names him as chair of its advisory board since 2021. His experience also includes co-founding online brokerage Zecco. Having studied German corporate law in Heidelberg, he brings a particular grounding in transactions between the Netherlands and Germany, alongside advice on governance and company sales.

Reinout Paardekooper is co-founder and chief product officer of eBrain.ai, where he leads development and helps define the product’s technical direction. Before eBrain, he co-founded Hulpmetdewet.ai, building tools for Dutch legal professionals that combined case-law research, source citations and document drafting. His public profile also lists work designing AI recruitment systems at 10x.Team. eBrain’s current product is an AI assistant for entrepreneurs, connecting email, calendars and meeting notes, with approval required before it sends messages or changes information on a user’s behalf.

Floris Rost van Tonningen is a technology entrepreneur and investor whose ventures include Hyves and OpenUp. He co-founded Hyves, the Dutch social network that reached around ten million members before Facebook became dominant. He later developed the idea for OpenUp with engineer and psychologist Gijs Coppens, applying a digital platform model to access to mental wellbeing support. OpenUp works through employers to connect employees with psychologists and online resources. Investor Rubio also identifies IEX and Soople among his earlier ventures, tracing a career across several generations of online services.

Jip Samhoud founded the Dutch Youth Cabinet at fifteen, served as youth prime minister of the Netherlands, and published his first book at eighteen. He co-founded Let’s Copilot, an AI-adoption SaaS in the Microsoft ecosystem now used by more than 100,000 people and featured in a keynote by Satya Nadella. He is co-owner of &samhoud Group, a 160-person strategy and venture group, and of &ranj, Serious Game Studio of the Year, whose games were made for Johns Hopkins, War Child and McKinsey. He founded &samhoud Creative Tech in 2013, ran it for eleven years as founder-CEO, grew it into Dutch Digital Agency of the Year, and sold it in 2024. With Dutch National Opera & Ballet he produced Pulse, the first combination of AI and ballet, winner of the 2025 Golden SponsorRing. He chairs the Dutch Advertising Community and works on the Netherlands’ national AI strategy. In China he scaled the world’s first permanent VR cinema to 20 locations in 10 countries and rolled out 100 more inside Gome Group electronics stores with partner Bin Gu of Yuecheng Media.

Fabian Spielberger founded mydealz as a bargain-hunting blog in April 2007, building a business around shoppers sharing, discussing and assessing offers. That community became part of Pepper.com, the international shopping community business he co-founded. Pepper and Global Savings Group announced their combination in December 2022; the group adopted the Atolls name in 2024. His entrepreneurial career centres on helping consumers make buying decisions through shared knowledge, rather than relying only on retailer marketing.

Christian Stiebner is a technology investor whose background spans venture capital, private equity and financial supervision. Before his venture partner roles, he was a senior investment manager at KfW Capital, the venture investment subsidiary of Germany’s development bank. Earlier experience includes private equity at DEG, financial supervision at BaFin and the Deutsche Bundesbank, and work with a Berlin fintech startup. He holds an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona.

Eric Stubbé founded ALLSAFE in 1999 after leaving a career at ABN AMRO. The business provides self-storage for households and companies. Its first site opened in Amsterdam West in May 1999, offering extra space for belongings, stock and archives. He later extended the concept to specialist vehicle storage: the first ALLSAFE Engine Rooms opened in Weesp and Oegstgeest in July 2020, providing climate-controlled accommodation for valuable cars.

Finn Wentzler is the founder of Atlantis Ventures, a Munich-based investment business. His company biography describes entrepreneurial experience across technology startups and established small and medium-sized businesses, alongside co-ownership of several ventures. Atlantis describes its early-stage venture strategy as evergreen, investing its own balance sheet rather than raising capital from external limited partners. The wider family-office activity also includes private equity and real estate, giving his work a broader scope than startup investing alone.