Posts from the ‘Participants’ Category

Willem Manders – Shell International (NL)

Willem Manders’ background is industrial engineering and management science. He started his career in consulting, project management and business development. After that he worked for six years as a strategic innovation manager in Shell’s GameChanger program, identifying, seed funding and developing future step-out business opportunities. This gave him great insights into how to develop new business opportunities and how to build organization capabilities in new business areas. Therefore he moved into the learning and development organization. Willem currently is Manager Learning Strategy and Innovation for Shell, exploring how to increase the learning potential of the company.

Hans de Zwart – Shell International (NL)

Hans de Zwart is an educator with a passion for open learning technology. He has 10+ years of experience using technology to maximise the potential of learners and teaching staff, both in the academic and in the corporate world.

He is currently working as Innovation Manager Global Learning Technologies at Shell International in the Netherlands. He manages the learning technology innovation funnel: exploring the opportunity space, proving business value and bringing ideas from proof concept towards full service deployment.

Before his time at Shell he spent two years working as a learning consultant at Stoas Learning in the Netherlands. There he supported organisations in fulfilling their learning ambitions relying on his extensive knowledge of digital pedagogy and state of the art technology. Key customers were the Council of Europe and Shell International.

Earlier he spent some five years innovating educational practice as a teacher, mentor, project coordinator and researcher in action at the Open Schoolgemeenschap Bijlmer in Amsterdam Zuidoost.

Things he enjoys talking about include: technology and society, popular science books, (e-)learning, philosophy, open source software like Moodle or Ubuntu, the Nintendo DS, juggling and civil liberties in a digital world. He blogs at blog.hansdezwart.info.

Laura Overton – Towards Maturity (UK)

Laura Overton is the Managing Director of Towards Maturity – a not for profit benchmark practice that provides independent research to help business deliver improved performance through learning innovation. Her work is based on 20+ years of practical experience in implementation and strategy is backed by her independent research with over 1800 organisations and 3000 learners since 2003.

Laura is the author of ‘Linking Learning To Business’ – one of the first industry benchmark studies with both organisations and learners investigating good practices of successful implementations (Jan 04). She is also co- author of ‘Boosting Business Agility’ (2011), ‘Accelerating Performance’ (Nov 2010),‘The Towards Maturity Impact indicator’ (March 2010), ‘Driving Business Benefits’ (Jan 09) and ‘Towards Maturity’ (Jan 07) –independent reports looking at effective e-learning practices in the workplace.

With over 2 decades of experience of implementing learning technologies in the workplace, she works with government policy makers representing employer interests and has contributed to initiatives associated with the UK’s Sector Skills Councils, the European Commission and has sat on the steering groups of a number of UK government learning technology strategy boards (including the Becta Harnessing Technology strategy and as a member the original advisory board to the Learning and Skills Council (now Skills Funding Agency).

Laura is a Fellow of the IITT and of the British Institute of Learning and Development and is a popular industry commentator having published over 100 articles and case studies. She sits on the steering committee of Online Educa Berlin and advisory board of ELIG and the IITT. In February 2010, she was awarded the Institute of IT Training’s prestigious Colin Corder Award for services to IT training.

Charles Jennings – Duntroon Associates (UK)

Charles Jennings is the Managing Director of Duntroon Associates. He is a leading thinker and practitioner in the areas of performance improvement, change management, and learning.

From 2002 until the end of 2008 Charles was the Chief Learning Officer for Reuters and Thomson Reuters where he had responsibility for developing the global learning and performance strategy and leading the learning organisation for the firm’s 55,000 workforce.

Charles has deep experience in both the business and learning practitioner sides of performance improvement and effective learning solutions. He also knows ‘what works’ in the world of strategic talent.

His career includes roles as head of the UK national centre for networked learning, as a Professor at Southampton Business School, in senior business roles for global companies, and as an evaluator for the European Commission’s learning, performance and eCommerce research initiatives. He also sits on steering groups and advisory boards for national and international training, learning and leadership development bodies.

Charles has an impeccable record of developing and implementing leading-edge performance solutions spanning more than 30 years. In 2008 he was honoured with the UK World of Learning ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Learning Industry’ award in recognition of his work on performance improvement, and ‘just-in-time’ and informal learning. In 2011 he received the IITT/LPI (Learning & Performance Institute) Colin Corder award for his ‘significant and lasting contribution to the training industry’.

In 2006 Charles was one of six experts invited to be members of the UK Department of Trade & Industry’s Global Watch delegation to the USA on the “Beyond eLearning” mission.

David Mallon – Bersin & Associates (US)

David Mallon directs Bersin & Associates’ research in learning, our practice area which includes learning governance, content development, informal learning, social networking, virtual learning, learning culture, and learning management systems. Mallon is responsible for major industry studies including High Impact Learning Culture, Learning Management Systems, and High Impact Learning Practices. He has more than a decade of experience in corporate learning strategies, programs, and processes, and in the selection and implementation of learning and performance solutions and related technologies. Mallon is a frequent presenter at key industry events such as those of ASTD and the e-Learning Guild.

Prior to joining Bersin & Associates, Mallon led the consulting services practice for a major LMS provider, where he and his team assisted hundreds of clients with the integration and alignment of solutions to critical business objectives. He has held several training and development positions with EarthLink, where he was responsible for overall learning strategy for its global call center organization. Mallon holds a Masters Degree in Digital Media with focuses on computer-aided distance learning and on storytelling in digital environments.

Job Bilsen – Bright Alley / Conclusion (NL)

How to write a good introduction about Job for people who don’t know him. Well, at first his factsheet:
Name: Job Bilsen
Age: 28
Lives in: Utrecht, a city in the centre of the Netherlands, close to Amsterdam.
Job-title: E-learning Consultant, Learning Technologist
Passion for: Online, technology, online learning, Film & Photography, industrial design, Snowboarding, Hockey

Let’s continue by explaining his passion for online learning and the design process. When he finished university and became a teacher in primary school he was searching for a way to let his students actually benefit from ICT in school. It turned out that most of what the software publishers delivered wasn’t exactly that good and frustrated both him and his students. This is why he started studying Educational Science & Technology at Twente University. He made a radical change to corporarate learning when he joined Stoas as an e-learning consultant in 2007. Many tools, platforms and communities came accross. The one which sticked around was Moodle. Since 2009 he has joined Bright Alley, part of Conclusion. Here he is in the privileged position to help big organisations with defining their learning strategy and bringing it into action.

Harm Weistra – Self employed (NL)

After a career in education, IT and management consulting, Harm started his own business in 2004. Self employed since then. He worked for companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Oracle and KMPG Consulting. For over 15 years, learning and technology has been his main focus. For more than 12 years he has been involved in the Dutch National E-learning Conference. As speaker, chairman and co-organizer. He has a master degree in educational sciences. This year he got his degree in fine arts .

JoEllyn Prouty McLaren – CorpU Xchange (UK)

Dr. JoEllyn Prouty McLaren, Ed. D., leads CorpU Europe, Middle East and Africa in London. She believes in the power of social learning as a tool for improving performance at the individual, team and organisational level.

Dr. Prouty McLaren has advanced the leadership capabilities of thousands of global leaders while leading executive development programmes for London Business School, Chicago Booth, Fortune 100 companies and SMEs throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. With more than 20 years of experience in consulting, management, business education, strategic talent management and offline/online learning, she is uniquely positioned as an authority in multi-modal human capital development to improve performance. She has lectured at LBS where she directed the Senior Executive Development and Strategic Talent Management programmes and is currently working on a book related to key findings in her doctoral research on employer brand and building competitive advantage through the employee experience.

Dr. Prouty McLaren holds a doctorate in learning leadership from University of Pennsylvania/Wharton, an MBA in international business from Chicago Booth, and a BA in French and Foreign Service from Baylor University. She has lived and worked in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and currently resides in London with her husband.

Line Wilgaard Wittrup – Grundfos Pumps (DK)

Line has been working at The Poul Due Jensen Academy since 2007 as a course developer and education consultant. With the responsibility of keeping a high level of learning and innovation into their training methods and form – in her role as the academy’s learning expert. She has a background as master in Drama & Cognitive Science and Learning styles with a focus on how people make sense and have great experiences. A background that gives her the strength of seeing things in new perspectives.

Tiina Seikkula – Lahti University of Applied Sciences (FI)

Principal lecturer in tourism. Interested in elearning with easy access.