Advisory Council

Willem Visser has more than 45 years of work experience at the highest level. His personal motto: develop all potential power in life. This means that he always is looking for his boundaries and makes sure that others search for theirs. After all he is 8th Dan Judo and has been  four time Olympic coach in Judo and he coaches executives, board members, directors and managers. As goal of his coaching he sees improving the performances and learning possibilities of others, as well as the expansion of the effectiveness of the leader to teach managing capacities or improve them to be able to help others in their development. He took care of coaching projects for a number of well know companies. He has been a guest lecturer at top-level colleges in the Netherlands and abroad. Willem Visser has been working as an executive for the Justice Department, the Police, Business Companies and National & International Sport Federations. In these positions he developed a method to come to self-management. Key objective: through group functionality, self-discipline, self-evaluation one will come to responsible self-determination. Many executives developed to top level with this method, which he also used in his activities as an Olympic coach. His experience formed the basis to coach board members, but also to for fill a couple of directorships (eight years) in business. http://linkedin.com/in/willem-visser-owner-willem-visser-coaching-b-v-ba4a091b http://willemvissercoaching.eu  

Starting my professional career in PWC and in positions in the financial area, during the last 20 years I have held various positions in industrial companies managing operations and sales teams, essentially oriented towards the development of projects and sales channels. From 2013 I have combined my experience with my passion to perform an innovative training based on the judo principles: maximum efficiency with minimum effort and mutual benefit and welfare, to work and life. I also take part in the consulting firm Connociam, as expert coacher in Innovation, Management and Organization, and leader of the Practice of Business Strategy for SMEs.

Professor of Innovation, Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Technology. Consultant, speaker, blogger and entrepreneur. Xavier Ferràs has a PhD in Economics and Business from UB and MBA from ESADE and Telecommunications Engineer from UPC. Professor of Operations Management, Innovation & Data Sciences at ESADE since 2002. He's Executive Director of Business Custom Programs. He has been Dean of the Faculty of Business and Communication at the University of Vic. Until 2012, he was Director of the ACC10 Centre for Business Innovation (Catalan Agency for Competitiveness), and was responsible for technology transfer policies, R&D and development of clusters in Catalonia. He has previously served as CIDEM Director of Business Development, Head of Innovation, Co-ordinator of the Technological Innovation Plan for Catalonia (2001-2004), and member of the committee drafting the Research and Innovation Plan (2005-2008). Among other executive positions related to technology and innovation, he has been a member of the boards of trustees and executive boards of BAIE (aerospace cluster), Biocat (biotechnology cluster), CTM technological centres (advanced materials), Barcelona Media (audio-visual), CTAE (Aerospace), LEITAT (manufacturing), the Microsoft Productivity Centre in Manresa, the Catalan Foundation for Research, the i-CERCA Foundation (Research Centre of the Catalan Government), Invertec (Venture Capital Company), and Creafutur. He previously worked in the automobile industry and as Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering. Author of 'Innovación 6.0: el Fin de la Estrategia' (Plataforma, 2010). Co-author of 'Pasión por Innovar' (Granica, 2006), 'Tanto Creces, Tanto Vales' (Granica, 2005), and '50 Lecciones de Management' (Granica, 2007). Speaker at over 200 national and international conferences on strategy, innovation and technology management.