Mignon van Halderen runs the Professorship Thought Leadership in a Society of Change at Fontys University of Applied Sciences (School of Communication) in Eindhoven. The goal of this professorship is to develop innovative knowledge on Thought Leadership and share this with a large community of organisations, researchers, communication professionals, teachers and students. She also advises organisations on making choices about thought leadership strategies and offers in-company presentations to organisations that are keen on pursuing a thought leadership strategy, but first like to have a richer insight into its meaning and how it can be pursued. Within the MCC programme of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Mignon offers the executive course Thought Leadership in a Society of Change, is a guest speaker at the annual summer course and coaches students during their final graduation project. In 2014, Mignon won the Lecturer of the Year award in teaching Communication Research at the Master of International Communication Management at The Hague Applied University.

Ange leads a team of innovative professionals who are driving the global Communications thought leadership, content creation, publishing activities and planning. Together they strive to increase the impact and efficiency of Communications across the company. Prior to this, Ange led Design & Innovation Communications at Philips and was key in building the company’s reputation as a creative and innovative leader. Ange prides herself in her ability to build, enable and engage successful teams and foster relationships across organizational boundaries. She holds a BA in Psychology and Women’s Studies from Antioch College, and a MCs in Corporate Communications from RSM, Erasmus University.

Maarten is a Designer at heart. He uses his designing background to help organisations developing meaningful brands. Maarten has a bachelor degree from the Willem De Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and a Master of Science degree from our own International Executive Master of Corporate Communication at RSM, Erasmus University. Maarten has his own company Ping-Pong Design and is an Associate Partner at the DesignThinkers group for whom he travels across the globe to offer design-thinking workshops. Maarten’s design-thinking approach offers an interesting and valuable perspective on designing thought leadership strategies. Hence, he will take us through the design-thinking principles to work on our own thought leadership strategy.

Brandon has been part of the Fontys lectorate Thought Leadership since 2015. He is a co-developer of the Thought Leadership Framework and has written several papers with Mignon on Thought Leadership. Brandon explores various types of what he would call “new economy” organisations to learn from their novel points of view and how they translate this to new strategies or surprising concepts. He offers guest lectures on thought leadership and works with Mignon on thought leadership (consulting) projects for organisations. Besides his partnership with Fontys, he owns his own company and advises organisations (SMEs) how to design meaningful brands by building conscious organisational identities. Brandon is supporting the teaching team during the 3-days elective by developing ongoing materials, co-developing and facilitating the workshops.

Dr. Anneke Neuhaus is Head of Thought Leadership at Siemens AG, a global technology powerhouse. In her role, she is responsible for the company’s reputation management, branding and positioning. Before taking on her current position in 2017, Anneke was a professor at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and held leading positions in communications and marketing at Deutsche Bank and WestLB AG (later Portion AG). Anneke graduated from the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a doctorate in Economics and Political Sciences after completing her studies in Germany and France, and began her career as a business consultant in the automotive industry. A seat on the Board of the Hartog Trust in Hamburg provides her with the opportunity to apply her experience in the not-for-profit sector.