Leadership under extreme pressure - Diversity - Resilience
Mandy Heeren
Mandy Heeren is an officer in the Royal Netherlands Army and has served in Iraq and Lebanon, among other places. In 2023–2024, she was deployed to southern Lebanon for the UN mission UNIFIL, where she worked as an advisor within the UN structure and Senior National Representative of the ...
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Keynote Speaker
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Keynote Speaker,
About Mandy Heeren
Mandy Heeren is an officer in the Royal Netherlands Army and has served in Iraq and Lebanon, among other places. In 2023–2024, she was deployed to southern Lebanon for the UN mission UNIFIL, where she worked as an advisor within the UN structure and Senior National Representative of the Netherlands. She fulfilled this role during a period of escalation, including an Israeli ground invasion and intense military tensions in the area. As the only Dutch military officer in the mission area, she operated at the intersection of diplomacy, military decision-making and national responsibility.
In an environment where safety was not a given, information remained incomplete and decisions could have immediate consequences, she learned what leadership means when stability disappears. Her work was not only about strategy and safety, but also about moral considerations, protecting people within her responsibility and functioning within international political tensions.
As a woman in a predominantly male and hierarchical environment, she developed a form of leadership that does not rely on volume or position, but on substance, consistency and moral strength. She knows what it takes to build authority without losing your authenticity, to take up space without shouting yourself down, and to make a difference in structures that are not naturally designed for you.
Within the Ministry of Defence, Mandy also held positions in the areas of audit, finance and operations. She combines operational experience from international missions with administrative expertise in governance, risk management and strategic decision-making. This combination of field and system experience, both in practice and policy, gives her a keen perspective on how organisations function when pressure mounts.
With her book Blauwe Scherven (Blue Shards), she presented a personal and socially relevant story about loyalty, organisational culture and the human dimension behind performance. Her work touches on themes that are also recognisable outside the Ministry of Defence: taking responsibility when systems are under pressure, speaking up when silence seems safer, and remaining human in complex and demanding environments.
