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Alette Vonk

Alette Vonk

As an intercultural change facilitator, Alette Vonk specializes on Africa and Europe. Her expertise lies in improving the impact of development agencies and companies in Africa, supporting effective collaboration and strategic thinking. She’s an excellent trainer: knowledgeable, engaging and witty.

about

Alette Vonk is a trainer/consultant intercultural management and organisational culture, geographically specialized in the African and European continents. Her expertise lies in improving the impact of development agencies in Africa, by supporting effective collaboration and strategic thinking over cultural borders. She works as a change facilitator, combining culture and organisational development, with agencies like GIZ-Ghana, and she has provided intercultural training to participants from Oxfam and SNV. She also organizes training on Doing business in Africa for a wide variety of companies (like ECOM Agrotrade, Koudijs Ghana, Kinross Gold, Stratcomm Africa, NABC, various SME's etc.).

In Europe, Alette provides in-house training Intercultural Management to companies like TOPdesk, EJR-Quartz, Vlisco, Straumann or the ABN Financial Group. She’s also active within the health sector, providing intercultural training for Case Managers Dementia, nurses in training and psychologists (Breederode Opleidingen and PsyQ International). On top, Alette is working with a migrant grassroots organization in the Netherlands, Oumnia Works, striving towards a healthy multicultural upbringing of children and preventing (Islamic) radicalisation. Last but not least, Alette is a lecturer Intercultural Management at the University of Leiden and once a year she provides a training for the American University.

Alette holds an MSc. in Development Sociology and Practitioner's certificates in Intercultural Management (ICM); Organisational Culture (OC); Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Organizational Development (OD). It is the combination of using the Hofstede cultural dimensions, together with various OD interventions and organisational culture, which results in the ability to develop tailor made intercultural change programs. Alette is also said to be an excellent trainer: knowledgeable, engaging and witty.

Coming from the Netherlands, Alette lived in the US for one year and she has lived in West Africa for 10 years (Cameroon, Benin and Ghana). In Africa she was trained in Organisational Development and has worked extensively with local and regional governments, Ngo’s, cooperatives, farmers and women’s organisations, the main themes being organisational change, gender mainstreaming and transparent governance. Both before and after her stay in Africa she has worked for local government in the Netherlands for a total of ten years, on community development in several neighbourhoods in The Hague, some with (Dutch) nationalist tendencies, others almost entirely made up of migrants. Before becoming an Associate Partner of HI, she was employed as an organisational consultant for an advisory firm in Leiden (Blaauwberg).

Honours and awards

  • Practitioner Certificates in Organisational Development (OD): MDF & DIRO Center (Benin), OCIC & SNV (Ghana), Sioo (the Netherlands)
  • Practitioner Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): Plata Opleidingen
  • Basic Qualification Education / Basis Kwalificatie Onderwijs (BKO): University of Leiden
  • IELTS Academic Test English: C-1: British Council (Amsterdam)
  • Blended Learning - design and facilitate: Ennuonline (Utrecht)

Resources

Expert in

Leadership development, Change management, Intercultural competence

Industry

Government and Supranational, Education, Consulting, Development Business

Certifications

Intercultural Management, Organisational Culture

Worked and lived in

The Netherlands, Ghana, Benin, USA, Cameroon

Languages

Dutch, English, French

Travels from

The Netherlands

Working with Alette on an exciting subject as cultural diversity was a real pleasure. (…). She was able to deliver a tailor-made training on a short term notice that provided us with several interesting cases, eye-openers and tooling for embedding this knowledge in our day-to-day roles. Professional, Flexible, Fun to work with.

Anke Aidam, Vlisco Group

Hofstede Insights bring a unique perspective-approach to their trainings that are rare. Combining empirical facts, case studies with theories in flexible coaching sessions the undercurrent realities of work-place conflict, cross-cultural misunderstand and tensions are creatively unveiled and addressed in a manner that leaves participants going back to their jobs with healed hearts; cleared misconceptions; abandoned egos - and above all, the need to mutually respect embedded hardcore cultural values that make or break corporate peace and harmony

Isaac Agyapong, GIZ-Ghana

Alette is passionate and knowledgeable. Having lived and worked in Africa for years herself makes her a credible trainer. The combination of Hofstede's scientific theory and Alette's practical experience and humor, makes her classes extremely interesting and enjoyable to follow.

Inez Willeboordse, Jobnet Africa

As an executive coach and management and leadership trainer, I found the content of the HI courses extremely interesting and it has proven very useful in my work. (...) Alette Vonk herself is a very good trainer. She is clear in her communication, has an excellent understanding of how to tailor her training style to different learning styles, has a good sense of humour and, of course, knows her subject in depth. I couldn't recommend her more highly as a trainer of cross-cultural management content.

Clare Brigstocke, Executive coach, lateralshift

I’ve worked with Ms. Vonk on international projects and have also followed one of her intercultural business courses. I’ve lived and worked abroad in Africa, Asia and South America for more than 15 years and still this course has been an eye-opener for me because both good and bad experiences suddenly fell into place and turned out to be explainable from a cultural point of view.

Willem Roodenburg, Alliance Plus

You immediately feel that she's somebody with a lot of energy, perseverance and is an expert in her field. Combine this with her skills of a very good listener and open mind and you get a great person to collaborate with.

Cyriel Kortleven, the Change Mindset