Fons Trompenaars

About Fons Trompenaars

Fons Trompenaars is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on culture, leadership and dilemma reconciliation. With humour, clarity and decades of global experience, he shows leaders how cultural differences are not obstacles but sources of innovation, performance and sustainable growth. In an era of increasing polarisation and rapid AI adoption, his work is more relevant than ever: effective leadership is no longer about choosing between opposing viewpoints, but about moving from either?or to through?through thinking that turns tension into traction.

Internationally, Fons is regarded as part of the absolute top tier of management thinkers, often mentioned alongside Porter, Peters and De Bono. He is known worldwide as a consultant, speaker and author who helps Fortune 500 leaders translate cultural and strategic dilemmas into practical leadership behaviour. His sessions are energetic, humorous and deeply insightful, offering leaders concrete ways to navigate globalisation, transformation, mergers, generational diversity and complex organisational change.

Fons works with Executive Boards, CTO communities and leadership teams across industries such as finance, technology, logistics, FMCG and professional services. His recent work includes building post?merger cultures, developing leadership programmes on cultural agility, AI and dilemma thinking, and helping organisations use generational diversity as a source of high performance. He also develops AI?enabled tools that make his methods accessible at scale, including the Dilemma Solver©, trained on more than 60,000 dilemmas, and the Employability Guide©, which frames employability as a reconciliation between personal responsibility and organisational promise.

He is the author of the global bestseller Riding the Waves of Culture, translated into 16 languages, and co?author of Seven Cultures of Capitalism, Building Cross?Cultural Competence, 21 Leaders for the 21st Century and Riding the Whirlwind. His work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, and in 2017 he was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. Fons is currently working on his new book, Tension to Traction (expected 2027), based on CEO interviews exploring how successful leaders turn tension into strategic advantage.

With a French mother, Dutch father, a PhD from the Wharton School and professional experience in nine countries during his years at Shell, Fons quite literally grew up between cultures. In 1989 he co?founded what is now Trompenaars Hampden?Turner, the global consulting firm that continues to shape how organisations understand culture, values and leadership.

Fons Trompenaars is a globally sought?after speaker whose work helps leaders connect perspectives, reconcile differences and build cultures that thrive in complexity.