My interest in technology began at an early age, partly inspired by my father, who worked in international roles at Shell. A desire to understand how things truly work led me to study Physics at Delft University of Technology. There, I became fascinated by fundamental questions: how is reality structured, and why does anything exist at all? Although the programme focused primarily on describing physical phenomena, these deeper questions continued to occupy my mind.
After graduating, I began my career at Shell, an internationally operating engineering company. I soon developed a growing interest in the societal aspects of technology and energy. During a period in which, among other things, the Club of Rome received considerable attention, I made the transition to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. There, I was involved in the Broad Societal Debate on Nuclear Energy, led by former Minister De Brauw — a fascinating project in which complex technology and public decision-making came together. I later worked at the Directorate for Technology Policy on innovation-related issues.
The rise of information technology marked a new phase in my career. I moved into the IT sector, starting as a consultant at Bull Netherlands, followed by various executive roles at RAET, where I was involved in solutions for municipalities, provinces and the healthcare sector. During this period, I gained insight into both the hardware and software domains, as well as the rapidly growing role of IT in organisations and society.
A particularly noteworthy chapter was my role as Director of the Millennium Platform, under the leadership of Jan Timmer. In the lead-up to the year 2000, efforts were made to prepare the Netherlands for the millennium issue — a large-scale project involving government, business and international cooperation. This experience demonstrated how technological risks can have far-reaching societal consequences, and how important it is to understand and organise such developments in a timely manner.
Following this period, I served with great enthusiasm as Chief Information Officer at Hagemeijer and Océ. The CIO role provided the opportunity to apply technology strategically to improve and transform organisations. In this capacity, I was a co-founder and, for five years, chairman of the CIO Platform Netherlands. I also served as a board member and later as the first Secretary-General of the European CIO Association (EuroCIO), working on collaboration among CIOs and on the relationship with European policy-making in the field of IT.
Throughout my career, I have been closely engaged with the impact of digitalisation on organisations and society. In books and columns, I have explored how digital technologies are reshaping structures, leading to more dynamic, global and “fluid” forms of organisation. A recurring theme has been how technology changes the way we work, organise and think.
In recent years, I have returned to the fundamental questions that first arose during my studies. Alongside my work on digitalisation, I am developing a conceptual exploration of the foundations of reality. In this work, I seek to bridge modern physics with a more basic ontological question: under what conditions can a physical reality exist at all?
My current work therefore lies at the intersection of technology, society and fundamental physics — driven by a single central question that has occupied me since my student days: why is there something rather than nothing?