Servant-Leadership Research Programme

Fons is recognised around the world for his work as a consultant, trainer, motivational speaker and author of various books on all subjects of culture and business.  In the academic space, he serves as Co-Director at the Servant-Leadership Centre for Research and Education (SERVUS) at the VU Amsterdam. 

Fons is listed regularly as one of the world’s most influential management thinkers and was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2017.

In 1979, Trompenaars received his MA in Economics at the Vrije Universiteit and in 1983 his PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for the thesis The Organisation of Meaning and the Meaning of Organisation.

Sylvia van de Bunt is co-director of the research centre SERVUS at the VU Amsterdam, coordinator of MSc courses in Cross Cultural Management and Organisational Behavior, and Program Director of Servant-Leadership at VU Amsterdam, and Visiting Professor at University of Suffolk, UK. 

During the last four decades, she has gained extensive supervisory and governing board experience. She is a VU Advisory Board member of Community Service Learning/A Broader Mind. Quote elected her one of the 600 most influential Dutch business persons.

She has an international career in business and academia. For the European Commission she was coordinator of a large-scale (12 countries) novel European project FILTER. She published extensively on cross-cultural management, executive education and talent diversity e.g. in handbooks of leading academic publishers

Prof. dr. Svetlana Khapova is a full-professor of Organisational Behaviour at the School of Business and Economics (SBE) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is Head of Department - Management & Organisation, and Head of Section - HRM/OB. 

Between 2009-2017, she served as a founding Director of Amsterdam Business Research Institute (ABRI). ABRI caters for doctoral education in management and organisation studies at VU. She also served as Director of Doctoral Education between 2009-2015. Since 2013, she is Director of the part-time PhD programme in Business Studies. Her research focuses on the link between careers and institutions. Topics:

• Individual careers as a resource for innovation
• Employees who take initiative to make changes
• Nascent entrepreneurs who make their careers successful
• Board members who define the future of their firms

Milton co-founded the Leadership for Impact Knowledge Centre at the Nova School of Business and Economics where he has also been Associate Dean for Institutional Relations and International Development and Academic Director.

Previously, he was Director of the MBA Programs at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Milton currently serves as President of the Estoril Institute for Global Dialogue, a think tank dedicated to globalisation and local change.

In business, Milton founded Leaders2Be, an organisation offering leadership development programs. He worked in various research and management positions, including Royal Philips Electronics, and the Hay Group.

Milton is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer on the topics of leadership and organisational behavior. His research interests include ethical leadership and servant leadership

Currently, dr. Meindert Flikkema is programme director of the VU Postgraduate Course Management Consulting, member or chairman of various Advisory Boards in Professional Service Firms, and involved in research on Managing Service Innovation, Trademark Economics and Knowledge Worker Productivity.

He obtained a master degree in Econometrics, a PhD in Economics and a master degree in Management Consulting (with honors). 

He teaches BA and MA courses in Business Administration programs, in MBA programmes, and in Post Graduate programmes. 

In 2005, he won the Best Teacher Award from the School of Business and Economics and he was nominated for VU Best Teacher award. The evaluations of his teaching capabilities are always ranked in the top 2%. 

Dr. Jos Akkermans is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behavior. He received his MSc degree (cum laude) in Work and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht University, and also completed his PhD in W&O Psychology at Utrecht University. His PhD research focused on career development and work-related wellbeing of young employees who have recently started their working lives. As part of this research, he developed the Career Competencies Questionnaire (CCQ) and the CareerSKILLS intervention. 

Jos Akkermans coordinates the first year Bachelor course Organisational Behavior. He is also involved in teaching several Methods and Statistics courses such as BRM, ABRM, and Research Seminar I. In addition, he is supervises Bachelor and Master theses.