On Track

In this episode we interview Roland Slot, one of our absolute role models. Roland is the founder of Aberkyn, a leadership development and coaching company which he founded with and recently sold to McKinsey & Co. Roland started his career at Shell with the goal of being successful (and make a lot of money), then got to the insight that he was not on his path. He started a spiritual path of self-development in 2001 and participated in a 9-day personal development trek through the African bush which changed his life. It was after this experience that he decided to found Aberkyn. Now, after having sold his shares it is time for a new, and huge, mission. He wants to introduce servant ownership into our society and disrupt our economic model. 

Today we have one Belgium's youngest CEOs in our podcast. He is an entrepreneur and innovator who has been recognized as one of Belgium’s next generation business leaders. His career trajectory is quite out of the ordinary. He studied hospitality management to then join Delhaize and become the youngest store manager ever at the age of 22. He then jumped into the world of logistics, taking on the role of South-East Asia Manager for Ahlers Group at the age of just 25. At 28 he co-founded e-commerce start-up Parcify, a parcel delivery platform, which was subsequently acquired by Bpost, where he stayed until December as Vice President of Bpost’s innovation incubator the FutureLab. Since January Patrick Leysen is the CEO of Xylos and Bagaar, a next generation IT service company with 250 talented experts.

Sebastien Bellin is a Brazilian-Belgian former professional basketball player who played in the top European leagues for over 15 years. On 22 March 2016, he got severely injured in the Brussels Airport terrorist bombings, where he almost lost both legs and near to 50% of his total blood volume. This accident left him unable to walk let alone continue his basketball career. His positive attitude towards life made him recover remarkably fast. Today Sebastien is training to run the iconic Ironman of Hawaii, despite his still reduced mobility. He pivoted from being a professional basketbal player to being an inspirator to many. He launched Team Bellin, an innovative community and platform whose mission is to create a working blueprint for people to overcome their handicap(s). In these days where people around the world are faced with the Corona enemy, with a feeling of anxiety and loss of control there a few people better placed to give advice on how we can all keep focus in the midst of distraction. Nobody better than someone who came face to face with death and lost everything that defined his career in a flash of light. Next to this, he is also just a really cool human.

Today we are in day 4 of the Corona lockdown and for that reason we are experimenting with remote podcast technology. It is a bit unfortunate because our guest, Jamie Anderson, has a contagious positive energy. Jamie is a professor of strategy who has taught at Antwerp Management School, INSEAD, London Business School, the University of Melbourne, etc. He is also a public speaker who has delivered 4 Ted Talks. His research is focused on the interconnectivity between creativity, innovation, leadership and corporate transformation. 

In this edition we interview Louis Jonckheere, co-founder and CPO of one of the hottest Belgian scale-ups. Showpad is a content management system that helps retail businesses bring all their marketing and sales content to one online location. They grew to over 500 employees in less than 10 years, serve more than 1,000 customers in 50 countries and have offices in London, Munich, San Francisco, Portland, and Wroclaw. 

Our first guest at the 48' podcast is An Claes, global VP of Supply Chain Planning in the Consumer Health division of Johnson and Johnson. Consumer Health is a $14B division of Johnson & Johnson, focused on over the counter medicine, skin health and other essential products, touching 1.2B people annually. An participated in a 48HoursUnplug leadership retreat in the Dominican Republic. She was so enthusiastic that she took an advisory role at 48HoursUnplug. We call her the 48HU 'godmother". The interview is conducted by Jennifer Elliot, who recently joined the team to build a stronger Unplug 48 (more news soon).

Because we believe in “leading by example”, we started our 48 minutes podcast with our Unplug48 founder Carlien Cavens. A few years ago, she had the guts to leave the save and prestigious path at McKinsey to help leaders grow. With promising results. The interview is conducted by Jennifer Elliot, who recently joined the team to build a stronger Unplug 48 (more news soon).