Professor Vrede is a passionate educator and researcher in leadership at the top. Next to teaching in a variety of programmes at INSEAD he is also a coach for C-suite leaders. His research is mainly focused on subjects related to Board Effectiveness, Transitioning into C-suite roles and elevating collective executive performance.
His observation is that while traditional management literature runs the risk of telling leaders how to do their job, we need to instead find ways to grow the reflective capability of executives to deal with the complex and unique challenges that they face in a way that makes sense for them.
Although there are consistent dynamics in leadership (Ontology), we also have to accept that leadership is a social construct with different variables in each specific business or situation. Arriving at accurate judgement regarding the nature of issues and selecting the right intervention strategy is therefore more art than repetitive skill. Elevating individual and collective leadership should from that perspective include the broadening of mindsets, methods for reframing of situations and increasing the willingness to reconstruct existing leadership paradigms.
Prior to his academic career, professor Vrede held leadership positions at Royal Dutch Shell, Cisco Systems, ATOS and ABN-AMRO Bank.
Professor Vrede (a Dutch national) holds a Doctorate from Oxford Brooks University in Corporate Governance and is an INSEAD alumnus. He is based in Amsterdam yet spends most of his time in Fontainebleau.
