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prof. dr. Fons Trompenaars

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Biography of prof. dr. Fons Trompenaars

Author of 'Riding the Waves of Culture, understanding cultural diversity in business'

Complete biography

Expertise

Listed regularly for many years as one of the world's most influential, living, management thinkers, Fons Trompenaars is recognized the world over for his work as consultant, trainer, motivational speaker and author of various books on all subjects of culture and business. As founder and director of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, an intercultural management and consultancy firm, he and his team has spent over 20 years helping Fortune 500 leaders and professionals manage and solve their business and cultural dilemmas to increase global effectiveness and performance, particularly in the areas of globalization, mergers and acquisition, HR and leadership development.

Presentation style

Fons Trompenaars presents in an entertaining, thought-provoking way and gives interactive introductions into a topic with the aid of examples and best practices, that relate to the audience’s daily work situation and its implications globally.

Some of the topics and work covered by Fons and his team:

- Managing Across Cultures

- Multicultural Management

- International Teambuilding and Remote Management

- The Management of Strategic Dilemmas

- Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

- Leadership for the 21st Century

- Creativity, Innovation and sustainability

- Cultural due-diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions

Tools

Trompenaars Hampden-Turner have the largest cross cultural database in the world in which we have captured the key business issues that relate to cultural differences. Together with our corporate and dilemma databases, we have approximately 100,000 records from over 100 countries that underpin our work and enable us to benchmark challenges faced by our clients. This rich intellectual capital offers direction to solutions for improved performance and future sustainability.

Professional experience

Fons began his career in the Personnel Division of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1981, where he looked at job classification and management development at the Shell Research Laboratories in nine different countries. Here he met his partner, Charles Hampden Turner, with whom he has pioneered the Seven Dimensions of Culture and Dilemma Reconciliation philosophy into a powerful approach forreconciling cultural differences.

With his growing team of consultants he has translated this approach into innovative, practical and profitable results in all areas of international business for such companies as: BP, Philips, IBM, Heineken, Applied Materials, AMD, VNU, TRW, Mars, Motorola, General Motors, Dow Chemical, CSM, Telfort, Wolters Kluwer, Gerling NCM, Merrill Lynch, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, ABN AMRO, ING,PepsiCo, and Honeywell.

Background

Fons Trompenaars studied Economics at the Free University of Amsterdam and later earned a Ph.D. from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on differences in conceptions of organizational structure in various cultures. He experienced cultural differences firsthand at home, where he grew up speaking both French and Dutch.

Listed regularly in the past decade as one of the world's most influential, living, management thinkers, he has been awarded the International Professional Practice Area Research Award by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).

Publications

Fons Trompenaars is the author/co-author of 13 books, including the best seller Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business, (Nicholas Brealey, 1993). This book has been translated into fourteen languages (including Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Russian) and the Dutch translation of this book was awarded “Book of the Year” by the Order of Experts and Consultants on Organization (OOA). Some of his other books include: 21 Leaders for the 21st Century (John Wiley and McGraw Hill, 2001), the Culture for Business series, which comprises four books (Capstone, 2004-5), Riding the Whirlwind: Connecting People and Organizations in a Culture of Innovation (Infinite Ideas, 2007), Servant-Leadership Across Cultures (Infinite Ideas, 2008) and Innovating in a Global Crisis (Infinite Ideas, 2009). His most recent publication is The Global M&A Tango (Infinite Ideas, 2010).

Topics

The value of cultural diversity in companies
Excellent leadership
Implementation of targets
Individual creativity
Political leadership

Photos of prof. dr. Fons Trompenaars

Books of prof. dr. Fons Trompenaars

Title: Business Across Cultures (PW)
Authors: Fons Trompenaars and Co.
Publisher: Capstone
Year of publishing: 2004
ISBN: 1-84112-474-5

Full description

Business Across Cultures is the keystone book in the Culture for Business series. It provides an overview of all subjects tackled in the other books of the series. Its particular aim is to provide executives with a cross-cultural perspective on how companies meet the diverse needs of customers, investors and employees; to introduce the main ideas in business in a multicultural context; and to show how they all fit together.
Title: Managing Change Across Corporate Cultures (PP)
Authors: Fons Trompenaars and Co.
Publisher: Capstone
Year of publishing: 2004
ISBN: 1-84112-578-4

Full description

Managing Change Across Corporate Cultures peels away the mysteries of corporate culture to reveal why it has such a powerful influence on every aspect of the performance of a business. It shows how to shape high-performing corporate cultures in a complex international environment. As the natural successor to Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner's landmark bestseller, Riding the Waves of Culture, Managing Change Across Corporate Cultures shows exactly how to create an environment where astonishing business breakthroughs are possible. You will also learn how to renew cultures as part of change and how to integrate cultures successfully following mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. New research shows that in cross-border business, differences in corporate culture have more far-reaching repercussions than even differences in national cultures. Never before has there been such enormous interest in shaping and changing the cultures of our businesses, whether to revitalise them after restructuring or to provide the glue that holds them together through the sea changes of globalization.
Title: Managing People across Cultures (CHT)
Authors: Fons Trompenaars and Co.
Publisher: Capstone
Year of publishing: 2004
ISBN: 1-84112-472-9

Full description

Managing People Across Cultures maps out the value of people issues in the organizations of today. It challenges us to ask key questions such as How did Human Resource Management (HRM) come to be and what genuine need is there for it? and What should the future direction of HRM be? Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner spell out their vision for what HRM must do to stay relevant to businesses today. Their view is that people management must embrace the values of entrepreneurship i.e. agility, flexibility and innovation to ensure its continued effectiveness. The authors also argue that workplaces have to become customized to grow and learn as its employees push the boundaries of learning and discovery. Functional barriers also need to be torn down. You will discover that the rightful place for HRM is at the fountainhead of any business; the place where ideas are first generated and mobilized for action.
Title: Marketing Across Cultures (PW)
Author: Fons Trompenaars
Publisher: Capstone
Year of publishing: 2004
ISBN: 1-84112-471-0

Full description

The marketing process is beset by dilemmas. Traditional theories about marketing break down when organizations are faced with new global markets with different cultural orientations. Trompenaars and Woolliams show how we can understand different markets and customer needs in a wide range of cultural contexts. They show that culture is the dominant factor that pervades all relationships and behaviours. It challenges every aspect of marketing. In short, culture is pervasive. Marketing Across Cultures will help you resolve the dilemmas and profit from a truly trans-national approach.
Titel: Did the Pedestrian Die?
Schrijver: Fons Trompenaars and Co.
Uitgever: Capstone
Jaar van uitgave: 2003
ISBN: 1-84112-436-2

Full description

Did the Pedestrian Die? is an accumulation of a decade of research into cultural diversity across the globe with a wide range of client organizations. Trompenaars and his research team have identified the issues that really make a difference at the level of the individual and the organization as a whole. In addition to his well-established cross-cultural database of 70,000 managers from across the world, Trompenaars has more recently interviewed thousands of business leaders and managers to understand the challenges and concerns they face, the tensions between competing priorities, demands and values. Often humorous, always inspiring, Did the Pedestrian Die? collects the insights of the world's most sought-after culture guru and shows how they can be put to immediate effect in any organization.