Who We Are

Hendrik Tiesinga

 

Hendrik is an experienced strategist, curator and facilitator of innovation labs and eco-systems. He’s the editor and producer of the Labcraft book, collaboratively written by eight labs from around the world. He was also a co-founder of the Finance Innovation Lab in London, convened in 2008 by WWF-UK and the Institute of Chartered Accountants.  He has designed and facilitated complex multi-stakeholder projects across Europe, North-America and the Arab world, working with a variety of organizations ranging from grass-roots social entrepreneurs and artists to the European Commission, the big 4 Audit Firms, Proctor & Gamble and Siemens. Hendrik is a founding partner of Natural Innovation.

He is a doctoral researcher at Warwick Business School in the UK, and currently a visiting scholar at UC, Berkeley. His research focuses on the impact and practices of innovation labs addressing complex societal challenges.

He holds a MA in Politics & Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam and a MA in Organization & Management Studies from the Warwick Business School.

Simone Poutnik

  

Simone’s experience is founded in a over a decade of working with multi-stakeholder projects around the world. She has supported various European Union Institutions to improve stakeholder engagement for strategy and policy development and participatory leadership development since 2006. She helped catalize the social innovation eco-system by in the civil society movements in post-revolutionary Egypt. She facilitated conversations about climate change at COP15 in Copenhagen, worked with various companies on collaborative design challenges and on creating thriving communities in Northern Kenya and Zimbabwe. And she co-initiated the Hub Brussels – a co-working space for social innovation and Tasting the Future – a community of sustainable food innovators in the UK. Simone is a founding partner of Natural Innovation.

She holds an MA in International Communication, specialised in Multi-stakeholder Engagement from the International University of Perugia in Italy.

Remko Berkhout

Remko works as a process-facilitator and advisor with civic initiatives that aspire deep social change. His passion is to enable learning, innovation and cross-sector collaboration to enlarge their impact. 

Remko built up his main body of practice working as a manager and advisor to local and international development NGOs in Bangladesh, India and Mozambique on programme development, institutional capacity building and strategic planning. 

From 2009 onwards Remko worked at the HIVOS knowledge programme with academics, activists and development practitioners to analyse, explore and experiment with civic driven approaches to systems change. In addition he initiated and co-hosted Future Calling, a visioning process that led to a major organizational transition, still underway. 

Now based in Austria, Remko continues to support Hivos on innovation, learning and programme development. Examples include the set-up of an Energy Lab in East Africa and the design of learning programmes to build capacity of innovation.  Remko also works with a select group of partners including the Dutch Science Council, Making All Voices Count and the Social Innovation Exchange. In addition, he is also increasingly involved as an initiator, advisor and co-host of new social experiments in Graz on issues like citizen participation and urban renewal. 

Remko regularly writes about civic action, development and social innovation at online platforms such as Open Democracy, Vice Versa, The Broker, the Society for International Development and NESTA.  Together with Hendrik he co-edited of Labcraft, a book co-produced with 8 social labs from around the world.  

Remko holds an Msc. in Sociogical Economics from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.  He is  associated with the Civic Innovation Research Initiative at the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague and the Social Innovation Masters at the Donau University of Krems.

Nina Nisar

Nina’s work creates relation between individual learning and leadership and collective innovation and transformation. She designs and facilitates transformative learning spaces to collaborate towards creating sustainable and life-affirming futures and the conditions in which individuals, organisations and communities can realize their potential.

For the past 10 years, she mainly worked in multi-stakeholder processes, peace and conflict transformation work and community building, partnering with foundations, NGOs, political sector and enterprises in Europe, Middle East and India. She facilitated innovation processes with political parties in Germany, designed and hosted city councils and community building initiatives both in Germany and India, co-facilitated dialogue projects in Israel/Palestine and held participatory leadership programs in Europe. 

Nina supports purpose-driven people, initiatives and organisations to realise their leadership potential and collaborate effectively and meaningful towards a shared vision. She holds a MA in Psychology and Political Science, specialized in International Mediation, from the University of Munich.