In this eye-opening episode, Ferry Hoes sits down with Simone Moissidis, leadership consultant at Transformatie Groep, to challenge everything you think you know about women in leadership, diversity quotas, and what it really takes to build inclusive workplaces.

Simone doesn’t just talk about representation—she dives into the structures, blind spots, and biases that keep women and minorities from accessing real power in organizations. From her work guiding management teams into the mountains (literally) to her interviews with 40+ top-level women leaders, Simone offers a candid, data-backed view into what’s broken—and what we can fix.

Topics covered:

• Why “female leadership” might be a flawed label

• The 33% rule for meaningful minority representation

• What visibility really means (and why it’s often weaponized)

• The broken rung: where women fall off the ladder early

• How bias in hiring is still rampant—and how tech can help or hurt

• When crying at work should be as acceptable as slamming your fist on the table

• Why curiosity, not compliance, is the driver of true inclusion

• Practical cultural shifts that actually work

Ferry and Simone also explore their own blind spots, biases, and the awkward—but necessary—path to rethinking leadership for the human era.

In this episode of The Human Era Podcast, I speak with Ruben Treurniet—co-founder of Civinc and waaromkiesjij.nl, and former Policy Officer at the UN Security Council.

We explore how anonymous one-on-one chats between people with opposing views can actually reduce polarization—and why this kind of human-centered tech might be exactly what the world needs right now.

We discuss:

How Ruben’s experience at the UN led to building Civinc

The psychology behind safe dialogue and honest disagreement

How organizations use Civinc to understand their employees better

The future of work in an AI-driven world and why we may need to rethink what it means to be human altogether.

A thought-provoking conversation about polarization, leadership, and the role of technology in shaping tomorrow’s society.

In this episode of the Human Era podcast, Ferry discusses the fusion of humanity and technology with this episode's guest, Válerie de Haan, Marketing Manager at Toshiba whom I met at a networking event.

We reminisce about our visit to a leisure park in the Netherlands, where we were impressed by the use of robots to support staff. This experience highlighted the delicate balance between leveraging technology and preserving human interaction.

Our conversation broadens to the impact of technology in the workplace and society. Valerie shares her valuable internship abroad, emphasizing how such experiences shape our global understanding and the importance of human connections. We also touch on the differences in work ethics across generations and the role of technology in evolving workplace dynamics.

Valerie, working in marketing at Toshiba, provides insights into integrating digital strategies while keeping customer engagement human-centric. Throughout, we stress the importance of maintaining our human essence amidst rapid technological advancements, underscoring the irreplaceable value of personal touch in both our personal lives and professional endeavors.

Why are E-sports so popular nowadays? There are tournaments and events that draw over 2.5 million viewers and have millions of USD in winnings. In this episode Ferry talks about E-sports and related topics with Paraskevas Spiliopoulos, head of Esports at Panathinaikos FC. What are the effects of young kids focussing on Esports and thus not joining a physical team? And how does Esports culture differ from live (physical, if you will) sports culture? Technology and innovations in general are disrupting the sports culture, experience and sports organizations. Together with Paraskevas, we discuss how that works and what the potential impact is. 

Does every problem need solving? And if a problem does need a solution, how can Artificial Intelligence help? I explore this topic in a very open conversation with Julia Picazo, who is educated in Psychology and is currently a Student Assistant at ErasmusX. Different cultures face different challenges. What might be a problem worth solving on one culture, might not even be a slight issue in another. If we then decide there is a problem, how should we use AI or other forms of technology without stepping over some cultural norms.

Who gets to decide when something is ethical and what does “being ethical” mean in the first place? Can we determine that for other people or should we consider different perspectives, cultures and norms when we determine right from wrong? I have a very insightful conversation with Emmanuel Goffi, fformer officer of the FASF and currently research associate, instructor, speaker and philosopher in technologies - especially Artificial Intelligence. Emmanuel currently holds numerous positions, including his role as the Co-Director & Co-Founder at Global AI Ethics Institute.

Emmanuel lets us think critically about our perspective and how technology has its place in problem solution, albeit it being a tool to fix problems. Learn more about Emmanuel and his work through his Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelgoffi/

Are young people still interested in building long-term careers with a single company? According to Ryan Morgan, PhD candidate at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, the way we view work is changing. Ryan specialises in Organizational Dynamics in the Digital Society and he sees the rise of platform workers and project minded people. No longer are people looking to commit to a company and its work environment, but more and more people are looking to work towards the freedom of choosing where to live, work and who to work for. Read more about Ryan's work at: https://www.ghostwork.org 

How does Artificial Intelligence becoming creative impact the world we live in today? How do big corporations use Social Psychology on us to sell more and what is the influence of reviews on the purchases we make? I talk about these - and other - topics with returning guests Tjan Lee and Levi Nijenhuis, two entrepreneurs with a ton of experience in automation and robotization. We explore how we can defend ourselves against the impact of corporations using our own brains against us and talk about who should use automation and especially why.

What happens when Artificial Intelligence becomes more than a tool, but rather a companion? How can social media increase actually being more social and what happens when these platforms fall in the wrong (or right) hands? In this episode, Ferry Hoes talks about these topics with Marvin Kunz, Behavioral and Data scientist at Wageningen University and co-founder of TechLabs Rotterdam. Marvin wrote a blogpost about AI becoming a comparison which you can read here: https://medium.com/our-ai-companions-between-emotions-and-calculation/our-ai-companions-between-emotions-and-calculations-31f86fe5df42