Huib Kurstjens

In my head, I’m an advisor. I can draw on more than 30 years of management consulting experience, of which I spent 26 years at Boston Consulting Group. The domains of strategy, organization/governance, leadership and people, and (digital) transformation I understand well. I have an unstoppable drive to help structure and solve business challenges; especially the more complex challenges leaders and corporations are faced with today. To decompose relevant angles, to frame and reframe, to analyze and point to relevant facts to be brought to the table, to think for myself and have an opinion, to help define alternative solutions.

In my heart, I’m a coach. Business impact is delivered by people. How people act and behave in organizations and how they are led is of critical importance. Content alone does not cut it. I like to get leaders to think about how they can get to better ways to achieve results. Especially together, working with their executive teams. I like to listen and observe, to ask confronting questions. I deeply believe in the coaching paradigm of awareness and responsibility, leaving it in the hands of leaders to define and act towards the changes they want to make.

With my hands, in daily practice, I’m trying to bridge these two perspectives, constantly, to understand how different beliefs on strategy or organization are impacting organizational cooperation and teaming. How leader profiles are relevant in team dynamics. What leaders can/need to do to change context to influence behavioral change. How harder and softer elements of change can be aligned. To be able to address these angles, I believe in the value of a good and fair process, in defining the ‘how’ well, and in structuring the right approach in clear steps and with clear milestones. In working with my hands, I can also bring my own executive management experience (for example as Managing Partner of BCG Amsterdam). Ultimately, jumping between these three perspectives, leveraging what is needed to create meaningful progress, is what I really enjoy doing especially for executive teams.