Who are the Interculturalists?
Everybody is unique, of course, but as we are in the business of grouping, here are some of our common denominators:
Extensive international experience
Traveling a lot is not sufficient. We only work with people who know how it feels to suffer culture shock, have to adapt to a different way of living, and have done that multiple times.
Academic mindset
The scientific mind is a curious mind. We do not rely on common sense or hearsay, we rely on research.
Educators
Our mission is to share our knowlegde so we are also adept in different trainings- and education styles and techniques.
Anne-Marie Dingemans, MBA
Researcher, Trainer, Speaker
Ir. Patrick T.H.M. Janssen
Researcher, Author, Trainer, Speaker
Ir. Patrick T.H.M. Janssen
Patrick T.H.M. Janssen grew up in Volkel in East Brabant, the Netherlands, and it was not until his studies at Wageningen University that he met new people from various (sub)cultures with various ‘normals’ that were previously unknown to him, while working with (international) students and lecturers. For his research, he spent time in Ecuador at CARE International and in the USA at the US Forest Service. It was during this time that he first became interested in international cultural differences and the effect they have on people.
Patrick graduated cum laude, and left for Ecuador to work as a jungle guide in the Amazon. Until 1997 he spent his time in Ecuador as well as in the Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher and CEO of his international (outdoor) tour operator ViaMundi BV. In 1997 he moved to Quito, Ecuador. From there he worked as a consultant for the World Bank (including research on sustainability and CO2 compensation projects), the Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism and NGOs such as Rainforest Concern and UNESCO in Panama.
In 2001 he returned to the Netherlands and worked for small consultancy firms such as CEA in Rotterdam (later BuildDesk) and CREM in Amsterdam. In 2005 he was asked as COO at Gyelloba BV to develop a chain of ecolodges in Suriname, Uganda and Costa Rica. After a disastrous construction project in Uganda, where the hotel got stolen, the company went bankrupt within weeks. Returning to the Netherlands, Patrick started Greybeard Intercultural in 2007, where all his skills and experiences came together in intercultural training, coaching and teaching competences. He wrote two books on intercultural competences and developed educational materials for various higher education institutions. Together with Anne-Marie Dingemans, he founded Emergence Global – International Research Institute for Interculturality – and developed a model of cultural identity.
At the moment he writes more books, works part-time as lecturer in higher education, gives workshops for companies, trains trainers and teachers in various countries in the use of intercultural models and coordinates research on interculturality.
Anne-Marie Dingemans, MBA
Originally from Eindhoven, Anne-Marie studied a Bachelor in Facility Management from Hogeschool Diedenoort in Wageningen. After two years as a recruiter and office manager at an employment agency, she moved to Antigua, Guatemala to work as an intern at the field office of AmeriSpan Inc., staying on as office and finance manager after extensive travel through Central America, the US and Australia. Then she was asked to expand AmeriSpan’s wholesale operations in Europe, using Madrid as a base. In 3 years, I have tripled the turnover from European customers. The next step in her career was to form part of AmeriSpan Inc.’s management team, being in charge of the European market, business development and the entire volunteer and internship programs. In order to do that, she traveled all over the world, working with grassroots projects that really contribute to the local economy; and thus giving thousands of young people the opportunity to live and work in a country and culture that had completely different norms and values than what they were used to.
Being culturally sensitive was essential to this work. AmeriSpan Inc. worked with small, local projects where the contact persons had little international experience and were therefore not at all used to an international style of working and communication (employees of large international companies often already have experience with the international way of doing business). She had to adapt to their working and communication style to be able to achieve trust and an effective cooperation.
The ambition to grow further in business led to the decision to study an executive MBA (graduated with Merit) at the Bradford School of Management where every student had at least 7 years of managerial experience. After completing her degree she accepted the position of General Manager for the WYSE Travel Confederation a worldwide association. There she led a team of 16 nationalities providing services and research for its members worldwide. Due to the crisis of 2008, she was let go, which was the catalyst for fulfilling a long-time dream; founding a International Communication consultancy named Globalizen.
Globalizen assists many dozens of organizations with their internationalization process; and Anne-Marie has worked with and taught at more than ten Universities in different European countries. To achieve the goals her clients needed Anne-Marie used models from different scientists in the field of cultural differences, because each scientist has his own angle and not every model was suitable for every combination of countries or perspectives.
The culmination of more than 20 years of intercultural experience is her collaboration with Patrick Janssen to develop a new model for cultural differences and Emergence Global for further research into interculturality.