Introduction

Born in the Netherlands, I currently live and work in London as an Associate Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School.  Before joining London Business School, I obtained a masters degree in both Business Economics and Organisational Sociology, and received my PhD ("cum laude") from Tilburg University, in the Netherlands.  For a couple of years, I was also worked as a strategy consultant for a company called Rijnconsult.  I performed projects for a number of multinational companies for whom I developed corporate strategy, designed and implemented international structures, and set up programmes for resource sharing and knowledge transfer.

At the London Business School I teach, and have taught, courses on the following levels:

• MBA
• PhD
• Executive education

I have designed and taught the core MBA courses on Strategic Management and General Management and a doctoral seminar on Knowledge Management.  I am also involved in a number of executive programmes for companies such as Sara Lee, Edward Jones, Vodafone, IBM, and the Fiat Group.  Some of these programmes are purely teaching-oriented, others involve a more advisory role on (multinational) strategy and organisation.  At Tilburg University I taught a core course in the School's International Business programme, for which I won the "Best Teacher Award". At the London Business School, I won the 2005 Junior Faculty teaching award. In 2008 I was announced as the School's first ever winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award.

My research focuses on strategic growth, particularly how organizations evolve over time. This includes topics such as organizational learning, development and change under conditions of external uncertainty.  My previous work on international expansion and the role of acquisitions and alliances has been published in a number of top academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of International Business Studies.  I am proud to say that in 1998, I received the prestigious "Academy of Management Journal Best Paper Award" for the article "International expansion through start-up or acquisition: A learning perspective".

Currently, I serve on the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic Organization and the European Management Review, and act as a reviewer for a number of other scholarly journals, such as Administrative Science Quarterly, the Strategic Management Journal, and Management Science.