Elze van Veenendaal

Contact Elze van Veenendaal

Expertise

Strategy, Sustainability, Transformation

Themes

Sustainability Director

Elze is driven by the connection between economics and sustainability, helping companies transition to business models that are both future-proof and economically viable.

With a background in commercial director roles spanning corporates to scale-ups, and having been an entrepreneur herself, she understands the current issues companies face. With a strong belief in collaboration, she brings stakeholders together around shared ambitions to drive meaningful change, preferably as part of a team.

My talent

Elze finds solutions that bring people together and create shared value. With creativity, she looks for possibilities where others might see obstacles, changing sustainability issues into a winning strategy. By connecting new ideas that make change feasible and positive, which are backed by data and research.

To her, sustainability is essentially long-term risk management and taking responsibility.

My education

Msc. Fiscal Economics – UvA
Msc. Sustainability – Harvard

People and organizations that inspire me

Christiana Figueres, who architected the Paris Agreement, and showed by example in Costa Rica with her family how handling this theme well results in a strong and stable economy

Companies like Schneider Electric, EcoLab, and Standard Chartered Bank, as well as initiatives like Instituto Terra.

What I like to do in my spare time

I love listening to all kinds of music (both at home and live with family and friends), as well as reading. For sports trail running, which is a kind of playing outside. Like working on our regenerative farm, which makes me forget time and screens.