About
You are in good company
We are passionate about our clients, good governance and our team. The way we work and the services we offer are designed to reflect and respond to the unique needs of your board. Our team consists of professionals with extensive experience in good governance in several related fields such as management consultancy, law, political science, risk & compliance, digital innovation and leadership development.
Vision
A society in which all citizens can rely on every company and each institute to be led by the values of transparency, accountability and integrity.
Mission
​To guide as many companies and institutes as possible on their journey to good governance and good leadership. We assist board members in building a sustainable organization and society with solid advice and practical tools.
Jan de Koning MSc CMC
Jan de Koning is a Founding Fellow of the Themis Institute for Governance and Leadership and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Galan Group, the Dutch management consultancy firm. He has over thirty years of experience in governance, strategy, and organizational development and has served as a boardroom consultant to a wide variety of organizations in both the private and public sectors on a national and international level.
Most of his current clients are in the governmental sector and its executing institutes, financial institutions, universities and research centers, engineering companies, the international Agrofood industry, and the safety and security sector. Trained as an environmental engineer, Jan previously held management positions with Arcadis and Royal Haskoning Engineers. He has (co-)authored several publications and books in the field of ‘Management and Change’ and holds positions as Visiting Lecturer at the Dutch University of Wageningen and the Nyenrode Business School. Jan also serves as moderator of several seminars on management and innovation in professional environments.
Prof. dr. Frank Kunneman att
Frank Kunneman is a Founding Fellow of the Themis Institute for Governance. Frank was senior lecturer at the University of Amsterdam as of 1986. In 1994 he became full professor of Civil Law at the University of the Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao.
Frank was Dean of the Law School for years. He is also an arbitrator, and he was a deputy member of the Joint Court of Justice of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, until he joined VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne in 1999 (Senior Partner).
Frank is the author of six books and dozens of papers on the subjects of Civil Law and corporate governance and is and he was editor (in chief) of various legal magazines and books. Frank was Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Netherlands Antilles (after 10 October 2010 of the country Curacao), which is the highest advisory body in the country, chaired by the Governor of the Netherlands Antilles from August 2007 until April 2011. Frank is also a supervisory director at Maduro & Curiel’s Bank N.V.
dr. Eelke Heemskerk
Eelke Heemskerk is a social scientist, boardroom consultant, and Founding Fellow of the Themis Institute for Governance and Leadership. He is fascinated by making governance work for people, organizations, and society at large.
Eelke is an associate professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He currently manages a multi-disciplinary research group that investigates global networks of corporate control from a network science perspective (CORPNET).
For his research, he received multiple prizes and grants, including the European Research Council's Starting Grant and the Veni prize of the Dutch Science Foundation. Previously, Eelke was visiting research scholar at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, at Columbia University, New York, and a research fellow at the Germany Institute at UvA and the Amsterdam Institute for Labour Studies (AIAS). He received his Ph.D. from the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research.
As a boardroom consultant, Eelke counsels boards and top management on strategic and organizational issues, and he supports private and (semi-)public organizations in reaching high levels of quality in governance. As a social scientist, Eelke is very much engaged with the social processes that determine the quality of organizations. Organizations are not so much an entity in themselves, but rather a collection of human beings. The ‘hardware’ of organizations is important; the ‘software’ is crucial.
Robbert Kroon MA BSc.
Robbert Kroon is a Founding Fellow of the Themis Institute for Governance and partner at The Galan Group (Curaçao) and Council Governance Risk & Compliance at VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne.
Robbert studied Business Administration and Sociology in Delft and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. As a management consultant, he has guided organizations in the process of translating business strategies into implementation programs and implementing these programs within these organizations.
His knowledge varies from affecting government and monitoring the long-term strategy and direction of an organization (governance) to management systems and process management. Besides his consulting activities, Robbert regularly acts as a tutor in the field of governance and the development and implementation of management systems. He is active in various industries such as the utility industry, the financial industry, and the non-governmental sector. Robbert is also a board member of various supervisory boards.
Gideon Shimshon
Gideon Shimshon is the Director of Digital Learning & Innovation at Imperial College London.
In this role, he is tasked with increasing the level of online and digital innovative education-related activity across Imperial and establishing the College as a center of excellence in this area within the sector.
Motivated by his passion for learning and innovative research practices, Gideon manages a diverse portfolio of projects that examine both the future of education as well as non-traditional applications of up-and-coming technologies.
Before joining Imperial, he was the director of the Centre for Innovation at Leiden University, a university think tank. In that capacity, he co-founded the Leiden Online Learning Lab – which considers how online learning environments can enhance and extend the university’s reach as well as foster new learning landscapes – and HumanityX – a knowledge hub for scientists and practitioners interested in applying Big Data analytics to the fields of peace, justice, and humanitarian intervention.
Before that Gideon was a consultant and project manager at Accenture. He began his career in the realm of political economy, working at the World Bank on governance issues, subsequently setting up a foundation for serious gaming and simulations in international relations and conflict management. He received his MSc from the University of Amsterdam and currently lives in London.
Prof. dr. Jaap van Muijen
Jaap van Muijen is a professor of psychology, especially leadership development and personal development at Nyenrode Business Universiteit, owner of Sense of Leadership, and partner of the Galan group.
Jaap van Muijen is a trusted face in the boardroom of top-level companies, including, water supply companies, consumer electronics companies, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, agricultural organizations, law firms, logistics firms, health care institutions, and government. He advised and supported the top management of several international and national companies in the field of strategic leadership development and succession planning. He is also a personal advisor of individual board room members as well as some Dutch Members of Parliament.
In 1994 he received his Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has held several positions at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He visited the University of Maryland for six months and was a member of the teaching staff of an HRM program at Hangzhou University (later Zhejian University) within the Netherlands-China Scientific Cooperation Program.
As a (co-) author he has published books and articles on these topics in various journals, including the International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Journal of European Work and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Leadership Studies, and International Human Resource Management.
For several national and international organizations, he implemented the master class ‘leadership in context’, a leadership program for executives.
