People behind Enviu

Stef van Dongen - Director

Stef (1976) is entrepreneur and founding director of Enviu. He has a longstanding interest in sustainability, co-creation and innovation. Stef is responsible for the Enviu strategy, HR selection, business development and marketing. He obtained his Master in Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management. Stef is Chairman of the Young Economic Development Board of Rotterdam and Deputy Chairman of the Economic Development Board of Rotterdam. Before founding Enviu, he worked as business developer regarding strategy and business restructuring in the financial services sector and as general manager for his family owned business in this industry. Click here for his personal weblog on issue-driven entrepreneurship. Contact Stef>>

Josine Janssen - Community Manager
Josine (1980) is responsible for the community. She coordinates the international Volunteer Community of Enviu. In 2003 she went as one of the first students of Enviu to Puerto Williams for her internship. Here she worked 5 months for a local NGO in the area of eco-tourism. After this great experience she continued to volunteer for Enviu back in the Netherlands. She has obtained her masters in Business-Society Management at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and is a member of several networks on sustainability as the Dutch TT30 of the Club of Rome and VisieNL - Sustainability. Contact Josine>>

Wouter Kersten
Wouter (1972) is responsible for the Research & Innovation activities. For his first MSc in 1996 in Industrial Engineering and Management (NL: Technische Bedrijfskunde) Wouter spent 5 months in Asia for his graduation project on providing connectivity to developing countries. He worked 5 years in Telecoms (consultancy/team leading) since then. In 2002 he made a definitive switch to the world of sustainability, in 2003 he obtained an MSc in Environmental Science. Derived from his job at Enviu he has also done research, currently at the University of Tilburg (Telos), on topics like international climate change policy, external safety, media-analysis and a high level VROM think tank. In general: sustainable development in international perspective. This combination of activities feeds his continuous interest in innovative (and practical) forms of sustainable development and entrepreneurship. Click here for his web-log on topics regarding sustainability, entrepreneurship, innovation and the possible role of NGOs in all of these. Contact Wouter>>

Frans Vester
Frans (1963) is responsible for Finance, Legal and ICT. He has a bachelor in Finance (HES Rotterdam), and a MBA in Management and Marketing (Webster University Leiden). He worked for several large companies in The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada, and Germany. The last ten years he started up several companies in different branches (Interim management, transport, and others). Frans joined Enviu in September 2009. Contact Frans>>

Marieke den Nijs - Community Assistant
Marieke (1980) is responsible for the community as well. She has obtained a Bachelor in International Business and Languages and a Master in Social and Cultural Anthropology. During her bachelor studies she already developed an interest for sustainability issues and for this reason she wrote her Bachelor thesis on export from developing countries. During her Master studies she did research in Senegal where she studied female trading activities and micro-credit. The combination of both social and economic aspects has always interested her and in 2006 this brought her to the southern tip of Chile where she worked as a volunteer for Enviu. During her time in Chile she worked closely with the local entrepreneurs to facilitate them to develop their businesses in sustainable way. She gave workshops on marketing and website development and assisted the local tourism organization in developing their strategy. After her return in the Netherlands, the opportunity to work for Enviu in the Netherlands opened up. Contact Marieke>>

Elmar Stroomer - Junior Business Developer
Elmar (1981) is responsible for the organisation of the Hybrid Tuktuk project. Elmar first came into contact with bottom-up business development during an internship at the largest graphic studio in Paramaribo (Suriname). Pursuing his interest in sustainable product development he completed his graduation assignment for the Sustainable Dance Club in September 2007, and graduated in Strategic Product Design from the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. Contact Elmar>>

Oriol Pascual - Business Developer
Oriol (a.k.a. Uri) holds a bachelor degree in Environmental Sciences from Farleigh Dickinson University (NJ-USA) and a masters degree in Environmental Management at the Business Community from the National Technical University of Athens and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Currently he is a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) within the field of sustainable product design. His thesis is entitled Managing Ecodesign in Electronics Industry. Oriol is curently Pre-Incubation Manager at Dnamo. Contact Oriol>>

Mathijs Huis in 't Veld - Project Manager Hybrid Tuktuk project
Mathijs (1980) is responsible for the organisation of the Hybrid Tuktuk project. He holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Erasmus University Rotterdam / Rotterdam School of Management. During his studies he started his own student employment agency, which was sold early 2008. Mathijs decided to join Enviu to be able to work on international, innovative, sustainable and entrepreneurial projects, such as the Hybrid Tuktuk Project. Contact Mathijs>>

Annemarie Spies - Office Manager
Annemarie (1975) is responsible for the management assistance and office management. She joined Enviu in August 2009 after heaps of years working for a company in the field of recruitment and staffing, with a travel-around-the-world-break every now and then. The challenge of Annemarie is a calendar with breathing space for the director and a smoothly runned office: make it a great place to work and make everyone feel welcome. Contact Annemarie>>

Françoise de Gelder – Community Manager Assistant
Françoise (1986) is responsible for all Enviu events and is Community Manager Assistant as well. In september 2008 she began at Enviu as an intern while finishing her studies in sociology at the University of Amsterdam. She learned a lot during her studies but wanted more than reading books and doing research. Cause her internship was experienced as positive and she finished her bachelor degree, Enviu decided to employ Francoise. Francoise is an official Enviu member since march 2009. Contact Françoise>>

Frank van der Tang - Heart of Operations

Frank (1978) is the Heart of Operations for Enviu since January 2009 and is responsible for overall project execution and team development. Earlier Frank was active for Enviu as a freelance consultant and as member of the board. After his masters degree in Social Science Informatics Frank started his career at Ordina, a large ICT-service company, as a management consultant. Not long after this he was asked to take up the initiative to form and execute a policy on Corporate Social Responsibility for the board of Ordina, which he did as a director CSR until December 2006. In 2006 he both started as a freelance consultant on CSR under the name Pure.potential (www.purepotential.nl) and as a co-founder of a CO2 compensation company OCO2 (= zero CO2, www.oco2.com) for which he is still active as parttime director. Since 2007 Frank is also active as a coach on learning journeys to developing countries like Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda for EsteamWork (http://www.esteamwork.com/). Contact Frank>> 

Joep Maas
Joep (1983) joined the Enviu team after a research assignment on the Open Source House project. After obtaining a Bachelor degree in Biomedical Sciences, he enrolled in the Master’s programme Science & Business Management. In time he developed a strong interest in innovation and social entrepreneurship. Joep is currently involved in several projects in which he is engaged in the general organization and in research activities. Contact Joep>>

Dhani Rahmawan – Communication & Marketing manager
Dhani  (1979) just joined the team in March 2009 and is responsible for all communication and marketing activities for Enviu. In the past he worked on several ‘below-the-line’ communication projects with Enviu’s close friends and neighbors, Contain.r (http://www.dhani.nl/ / http://www.containr.org/).  His biggest obsessions are: Communication, branding and lifestyle, Graphic design, photography and fashion. Now his interest for sustainability is becoming a new obsession too. His task and mission at Enviu is to make sustainabilty more sexy. Contact Dhani>> 

Walter aan de Wiel - Project Manager Open Source House
Walter (1981) is project manager for the Open Source House. He holds a masters degree in Industrial Design Engineering from the Delft University of Technology. Walter is founding director of Alive, and agency which connects Dutch companies to projects in the South. Before funding Alive he has been active in the food industry by designing food processing facilities in the Netherlands, Romania, Turkey and China. His vision is to raise the living standard of people in the south through social entrepreneurship. This is one of the reasons why he decided to join Enviu. Contact Walter>> 


Board of directors Enviu foundation

Casper Dickmann, chair and boardmember of several international corporations.
Chris van Dongen, secretary and serial-entrepreneur.
Ruud Pot, treasurer and financial expert/controller at large public organisation.
Jesse van der Zand, legal specialist at Kennedy van der Laan.
Han Brezet, director of the department Design for Sustainability at the Technical University Delft.


Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Gail Whiteman
of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department Business Society Management,

Dr. Jeroen van Wijk
of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department Business Society Management,

Drs. Ingrid de Vries (PhD)
of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Financial Management,

Prof. dr. Barry Glickman
of the University of Victoria, Canada, Department of Biology.

The goal of the Scientific Advisory Board is to contribute to the development of our research strategy, monitor the quality of our research programme and provide the operational organisation with tips and relevant contacts. Are you professor or academic in the field of social sciences related to environmental or sustainability issues and would you like to participate in the evaluation of our field projects please contact us.

Board of Expertise

Fons van der Velden, director Context international.
Jan Nijssen, former member of the board of directors of ING Global.
Prof. dr. Lucas Meijs, Meijs Consultancy / Rotterdam School of Management.
Prof. dr. Rob van Tulder, Rotterdam School of Management.
drs. Alex van der Zwart, Management Consultant: Concernz l csr consulting and co-author of various management books e.g. ''Reputaties op het Spel'' and ''International Business-Society Management''. 


The goal of the Board of Expertise is to provide a meaningful reflection on the development of the Enviu concept, generate ideas and build a significant network of contacts within the field of society, business, government, culture and science.