Katinka Huijberts
Executive Leadership Program - Amsterdam Class 15
I was born as the only girl and third child in a family of 4 children. My father was an entrepreneur, running an SME- business in the contracting business. We were praised for results; in the process of growing up as an adult, I learned that love and friendship come as a result of who I am and not as a result of what I achieve.
When I finished University with a degree in Business Economics I started working in a traineeship at Postbank (later ING). To be honest: I never wanted to work at a bank, but had a career of over 20 years at ING. After a sabbatical, I worked on interim assignments as an independent professional. After a period of 3 years, I decided to look again for a longer-term commitment. Since a year I am responsible for IT and Innovation at an insurance company.
A central theme throughout my entire career is the achievement of exceptional results with a team of highly committed people. I love solving complicated problems together. In this process, by nature, I often have/take the leading role, but I have no problem to take a different role (as long as I feel the person taking the lead is capable to do so. The world we live in nowadays dazzles me: there is this amazing window of (technological) opportunities and at the same time the amount and size of the challenges we face are unprecedented. What’s my role in this setting?