Umar Mirza on diversity, inclusivity and why flat companies own the future

Umar Mirza is a social entrepreneur, change agent, and debat eleader, and his expertise is to scale up social impact projects and companies. He is a founding partner of MDI consultants, a consultancy company with a focus on Social Innovation. He started the Scholierentop, which gathers college students on a platform to influence the future of their own city. He is Executive Partner of Ekmekci, a fast growing franchise chain of restaurants in the Netherlands with over 120 employees, and he is one of the driving forces of NL2025, a network of CEOs and social leaders who help to scale up projects to improve education, health and entrepreneurship in the Netherlands.

In this episode, we discuss:

- why small-scale and medium companies have the future

- the difference between inclusivity and diversity

- why bureaucracy is off, while flat companies are on

- how hiring a person for their first job can lead to them becoming entrepreneurs

- intergenerational differences between GenY and... all the rest

More information about Umar:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/umarmirza/

More information about MDI Consultants:

https://www.mdiconsultants.nl/

Melanie Rieback is an award-winning computer scientist, and co-founder of Radically Open Security, the world’s first non-profit computer security consultancy company. She works with ethical hackers for clients like Google and Wikimedia. She is also a former Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the VU, and worked in research and management roles at Citrix and ING, among others. With her work she won many awards and prizes, including the TIM Award for "Most Innovative IT Leader of the Netherlands" in 2017, and the EU Women Innovators Prize in 2019.

In this episode, we discuss:

- how she manages to give ALL of the profit of her company away, while still thriving

- why antiviruses will not protect your company (or laptop), while open access will

- the crucial importance of security tech-companies collaborating, in the future

- why she decided to give her clients full openness in the workflow, including chatting with her ethical hackers

- what she means by a post-growth movement, and why companies should join, now

- why investing in startups might not be the best idea - while bootstrapping is

More information about Melanie:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrieback/

More information about Radically Open Security

https://www.radicallyopensecurity.com/

Joep Langen is a social entrepreneur, (TEDx)speaker, and moderator. Although he started his career as organizational psychologist and transition consultant, he changed course in 2014, and co-founded Koeckebackers, a commercial sustainable do-good company, which gives opportunities to young disadvantaged adults by offering them a job and a professional talent development programme. People with a distance to the jobmarket are offered a 12-month Social Impact Traineeship trajectory which includes a paid job in the cookie-factory, but also coaching, sports, workshops, training and reflection-meetings. Joep and his colleagues believe that this will not just benefit their staff, but also wider society. Their ultimate goal: make people feel that they are seen, inspire and motivate other companies to copy-paste their do-good activities, and bake darn good cookies.

In this episode, Joep explains:

Why consciousness is the number one thing we all need for the future

Why leaders have to become more courageous and vulnerable than ever before

Why they built a blueprint for other companies to use, free of charge

Why inclusivity-debates all too often miss the point: to be human, is to long to be seen.

More about Joep:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/werkmetjoep/

More about Koeckebackers:

https://koeckebackers.nl/

Eveline Helmink is a journalist, writer and editor in chief. She is a self-titled cheerleader for failure and discomfort: true happiness isn’t about cutting out the bad days, it’s about accepting life as it is, including the “not so nice” feelings like grumpiness, sadness or discomfort. Therefore, she wrote The Handbook for Bad Days, Shortcuts to Get Present When Things Aren't Perfect, a handbook full of practical, no-bullshit, proven strategies to face our worst days with compassion, courage, and resilience. Whilst being editor in chief of Happinez, this formerly-niche magazine turned into a hugely popular and commercially successful magazine, and won two Mercur Awards in 2019.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why sometimes, saying f#*k you to highly paid marketing folks is the best you can do

What remote work teaches all leaders about trusting your staff

How courage, solace, resilience & meaningfulness help her in managing her team, and living her life

More info on Eveline:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eveline.helmink/

Rob van den Dool is cofounder of Yumeko, a social enterprise with an ambitious goal: to change the world. How? By changing the industry that has been doing a lot of wrong to people and the planet, and improving it: the bedding industry. Now, they sell ecological ethical bedding and linen produced without child labor, permanent environment pollution and exploitation of earth, people and animals. Instead, Yumeko only works with companies that meet the strict requirements of Fairtrade or the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). Moreover, every year Yumeko publishes an Impact Report, with clear figures and facts about the positive impact they made that year.

In this episode, Rob explains:

- how commercial sales can go hand in hand with genuine idealism

- how their cotton production has helped to decrease cancer in Indian villages

- why Yumeko has a 'happiness index' and employees score their own emotions

- what he learned to do when things were rough - and why he believes all leaders should aim for this, too

Hosted by Roanne van Voorst. Producer: Gabriella van der Linden. Sound: Yuri Blaak

Marieke Eyskoot is a sustainable fashion and lifestyle expert, and puts contemporary, conscious living on the map. She is a sought-after (TEDx)speaker, event presenter, consultant for companies that aim to do better, and co-founder of international fair fashion trade show MINT. She is also the author of the modern handbook This is a Good Guide – for a sustainable lifestyle, filled with practical and positive tips regarding fair fashion, clean beauty, real food, eco travel and a low-impact home; empowering citizens to make their choices matter. Her book has an adult and youth version, and has sold over 30,000 copies worldwide. Today we will talk with her about Sustainability, taboo-breaking and the worldwide movement she initiated: #SustainabilityAgainstShame, putting a spotlight on how we’re being shamed into buying more and more – which not only makes us feel bad about ourselves, but makes us treat the planet badly too.

In this podcast, we discuss:

- why the first question ANY startup should always ask themselves, is not how to scale up or find their niche, but whether they need to exist at all (auch)

- how doing good can be combined with doing business

- how corporates can change our beauty standards, or other things that matter for our society and wellbeing

More information about Marieke can be found on her website: https://www.mariekeeyskoot.nl/ and Instagram @mariekeeyskoot.nl.

Hosted by Roanne van Voorst. Producer: Gabriella van der Linden. Sound: Yuri Blaak

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten is what you may call a 'Serial Internet Entrepreneur', and a very effective one, indeed. He has founded many successful start-ups. One of them was HubHop, the first Wi-Fi hotspot operator in The Netherlands. However, most people will know him from TNW (The Next Web) as its co-founder and running CEO. TNW is a future-proof tech media company which organises, among others, the hugely popular 'The Next Web Conference', a yearly International Internet Conference where attendees, start-ups and speakers from all over the world come together to discuss the future of the web. TNW also owns a blog with news aimed at Internet professionals from all over the world, which has over 6 million pageviews per month. Their key to success? Play harder than you work, and never, ever, forget to make jokes.

In this episode, Boris explains:

Why dropping out of school was the best thing that happened to him

Why you should do business with a smile and a drink in a bar instead of having strict office conversations in suits

Why while you focus on having fun, money will follow

Why it is super important to show your employees and clients humanity, especially in the field of tech

More about Boris:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisvvz/

More about TNW:

https://thenextweb.com/

Producer: Gabriella van der Linden

#5 Nina Pierson (SLA) about Sustainability and Feminine Leadership by A podcast by Hatch

Kemo Camara is social entrepreneur, community organizer and Diversity & Inclusion Advocate. The past 20 years, he has lived and worked in cities across Africa, The United States, and Europe. He has founded different start-ups, built non-profit organizations, and played various leadership roles in community organizations. His latest founding is called Omek, a professional platform designed to uplift the African diaspora.

In this episode, Kemo explains:

- why a safe space and empowerment are the key elements to let your people (and thus your company) flourish

- why companies at job interviews shouldn’t focus on the hard skills the person has, but on the soft skills

-why looking outside your own bubble is the way to diversity and inclusion

-why you need people at HR positions who really understand the concept of inclusivity and diversity, and truly live it, to make an actual change in your company

More about OMEK:

https://myomek.com/

More network platforms:

AfroTech - https://afrotech.com/

CJS - https://www.creativejamsession.nl/

Afrispectives - https://www.afrispectives.com/

Black Ladies Talk - https://blackladiestalk.com/

Producer: Gabriëlla van der Linden

Tom van der Lubbe is a visionary, sustainable entrepreneur, speaker, and writer. He co-founded Viisi Mortgages, the first financial organization in the world to implement Holacracy: an horizontal, self-governing and self-managing organization. In Holacracy the purpose or goal of the organization that should be the leading factor, and not the CEO or a manager. So Tom believes in a "why" of individuals and organisations. The "why" is the motivational engine that gives fulfilment in what we do. Today we get to talk to him about his most interesting vision on the future of work and organizations.

In this episode, Tom explains:

- why he thinks decentralized decision making is way more productive than micromanagement

- why psychological safety is the key to high performing teams

- why big bonuses are unnatural to us as humans, and are counterproductive

- why everybody should be a leader, and nobody THE boss

More about Tom:

https://www.viisi.nl/over-viisi/team/tom-van-der-lubbe/

More about Holacracy:

‘Getting Teams Done’ - Diederick Janse & Marco Bogers

‘Reinventing Organizations’ – Frederic Laloux

Corporate Rebels: https://corporate-rebels.com/

In the interview Tom mentions the layoffs at Heineken that morning. He decided to write an opion article about those layoffs, which was published in Dutch in the newspaper Trouw: www.trouw.nl/opinie/kiest-de-co…r-belang~b603da91/

And in English at the international platform Corporate Rebels: https://corporate-rebels.com/future-of-capitalism-swinkels-or-heineken-economy/

Producer: Gabriella van der Linden