Entrepreneur & Management Consultant
Marco is an entrepreneur and board advisor. He is a co-founder of The Better Company, a spin-off from Erasmus University Rotterdam. He helps organisations align strategy, leadership, and culture – always evidence-based and always human-centred.
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Marco is an entrepreneur and management consultant with extensive practical experience in business and the public sector. He holds a PhD in business administration and has built his career at the intersection of science and practice. As co-founder of The Better Company, a spin-off from Erasmus University Rotterdam, he helps organizations align strategy, leadership, and culture with his team – always evidence-based and always people-centred.
You make real impact by doing less – but doing the right things.
His drive: bridging the wide gap between science and practice. “We know so much,” he says. “But so surprisingly little of it gets translated into real-world application.” It’s his personal mission to ensure that knowledge finds its way into organizations – tangible, applicable, and with noticeable impact.
Leadership and organizational culture form the context in which his story comes to life. They are crucial but are often unnecessarily made big and complex. “There is no reason to turn them into cumbersome, massive programmes,” he says. “You make real impact by doing less – but doing the right things.” Less is more. Intervene with surgical precision on the few factors that truly matter according to the data. Set aside opinions or beliefs, trust in data and evidence.
This is where science meets practice. Scientifically validated employee surveys reveal how employees truly experience their organization, which leadership and culture factors demonstrably affect that experience, and where in the organization these levers can make the most difference. Marco translates these insights into concrete, observable leadership behaviour. Directly applicable with small behavioural interventions – tiny habits – that become part of daily work. Science and data to know better. Targeted behaviour to do better. And measure whether that makes a demonstrable difference.
Marco speaks about leadership and culture in direct relation to themes such as inclusivity, diversity, psychological and social safety, vitality, the learning organization, integrity, sustainability, engagement, and strategic alignment. At first glance, these may seem like diverse topics, but at their core, they all revolve around one and the same lever: leadership and culture.
On stage, Marco is calm and confident. Analytical, precise, and direct – but never distant. It has to be about something substantial: he has little time for noise and big words. Data are not an end in themselves; it’s about what they mean, how leaders can guide them, and what needs to change in behaviour and collaboration. Marco challenges established assumptions, confronts when necessary, and actively engages in dialogue. Not a monologue, but thinking, exploring, and refining together. Always based on two questions: is it right – and what are we going to do about it?
His PhD research at TU Eindhoven was about strategic dialogue – a proven intervention technique for team alignment that he still applies. After several years in consultancy, he chose his own path: venturing at the crossroads of science and practice. Through The Better Company, he collaborates with professors in organizational behaviour and leadership and contributes to better companies and scientific progress.
That he could eventually turn his PhD research into an enterprise, Marco calls knowledge valorisation at its finest.
Entrepreneur, management consultant, and PhD in business administration Marco de Haas brings science to practice. In his keynotes or as a day chair, he shows how data and evidence help to purposefully change leadership and culture – from psychological safety and inclusion to strategic alignment, vitality, and the learning organization. Always sharp, practical, and focused on demonstrable impact. Request a quote for Marco de Haas.
Leadership and culture are crucial for the functioning of organisations, but they are often unnecessarily inflated and made complex. As if change is only possible with extensive programmes that affect everyone. It can be different. Scientifically validated data helps to reveal which specific leadership and culture factors truly matter in an organisation – and where the biggest leverage for change lies. Marco shows how, based on these insights, you can work on new leadership behaviour in a targeted and small-scale way – with tiny habits – and change culture step by step. It’s not about doing more, but only what demonstrably makes a difference. Less is more: small, focused interventions accumulate to create a significant and lasting impact.
Psychological safety and social safety are often mentioned in the same breath, but they are not the same. Psychological safety is about the space people feel they have to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, or bring in a different perspective. Social safety is about the absence of boundary-crossing behaviour such as harassment, bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, and aggression. Marco shows how both themes are interconnected and why you need to look beyond incidents or symptoms. The real levers often lie beneath the surface: in team dynamics, leadership, and organisational culture. Those who want to sustainably enhance safety must therefore not only respond to what goes wrong, but also understand which factors in the system cause or maintain insecurity.
Diversity is often reduced to differences in cultural background, gender, or religion. Nonsense. Diversity is much richer: it involves variation in perspectives, experiences, and ideas – and this is exactly where verifiable potential lies. Inclusion determines whether organisations can actually harness that potential. When people feel safe, speak up, feel at home, and are allowed to contribute their ideas, it creates better conditions for collaboration, creativity, and performance. Marco shows why inclusion is not a social luxury but a strategic necessity for better performance. The real question is not whether inclusion is important, but which factors enhance or hinder it. These levers lie in team dynamics, leadership, and culture.
Having a good strategy is one thing. Ensuring that people understand it together, commit to it, and act on it is something entirely different. Alignment doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree on all aspects of the strategy. It requires a shared understanding of the direction and commitment to each individual’s contribution to it. Marco shows why the same strategic words can take on surprisingly different meanings within organisations – and how leadership and strategic dialogue help to bridge these interpretations. Alignment is not agreement, but the ability to act in a coordinated manner in the same direction from shared understanding and commitment – without needing formal guidance or controls to be enforced every day.
A learning organisation does not emerge by sending people on courses more often. It arises when individuals and teams share information, seek feedback, reflect, experiment, and collaboratively discover how things can be improved in their daily work. Marco shows which conditions enhance or block this learning ability. Think of growth mindset, psychological safety, and feedback orientation, but also of leadership that provides space, creates meaning, and is open to learning itself. Those who want to grow sustainably must make learning a part of the organisational culture. Embedded in such a way that learning no longer feels imposed or extra, but becomes a natural part of how work is done every day.
Work happiness and engagement are crucial for motivation, loyalty, collaboration, and performance. But they require more than a Friday afternoon drink or an annual team outing. Also valuable, but not the essence. Work happiness primarily arises within the work. Engagement is a personal experience, but not a personal project. On the contrary. The context in which people work can make or break engagement: challenge and meaning, control, recognition, psychological safety, and good collegial relationships all play a role in this. Marco shows why sustainable work happiness and engagement especially require leadership and culture. The real question is not only what employees themselves can do, but particularly what leaders need to contribute.
Vitality is about more than just healthy eating, getting enough sleep, and regular exercise. It’s also about how your work affects your energy levels every day. Work pressure and emotional strain can deplete energy, whereas autonomy, social support, psychological safety, and good leadership can enhance it. And when circumstances change and uncertainty grows, resilience comes into play: can people maintain their energy, keep a perspective, and stay committed to what comes next? Marco demonstrates why vitality and resilience are not only health issues, but also emphatically leadership and cultural challenges in organisations — with ultimately tangible effects on absenteeism and turnover. As former Gallup CEO Jim Clifton sharply put it: “Your manager has more impact on your health than your doctor.”
Sustainability ambitions on paper do not make a sustainable organisation. The real test lies in daily actions: do people truly consider sustainability in their choices, decisions, and behaviour? Otherwise, the gap between words and actions remains large, with the risk of greenwashing. Marco shows how to move from good intentions to a sustainability mindset: with shared values, psychological safety, and space for sustainable innovation. But most importantly, with leaders who give meaning, provide direction, and visibly lead by example. Sustainability only truly becomes part of the culture when people at all levels of the organisation act on it collectively. Unprompted, every day.
A code of conduct does not make an organisation ethical. Integrity becomes visible when interests clash, pressure increases, and people must choose what they actually do. Do they speak up? Do they follow through on what they say? Is unwanted behaviour curbed, and are people treated fairly? Marco shows why integrity and social responsibility are much more than just compliance or ethical intentions. They take shape in the daily interaction between behaviour, leadership, and ultimately culture. Those who want to build an ethical organisation must not only establish what the norm is but also create an environment in which leaders embody that norm. So that employees also dare and are able to adhere to it. Even when no one is watching.
Everyone is doing it. But how many organisations genuinely improve as a result? The classic employee survey often measures a bit of everything, producing averages, benchmarks, and dashboards – and then leaves unanswered what leaders should do differently tomorrow. Marco shows why employee research can be far more powerful. Don’t start with the questionnaire, but with the strategy. Measure what you truly need to know, investigate which leadership and cultural factors explain the outcomes, and translate those insights into concrete behaviour. Then measurement becomes not an annual HR ritual, but the beginning of targeted organisational improvement: from knowing what’s going on to knowing what to do.
Every organisation is different. That’s why Marco can tailor his keynote to the specific issues of your organisation, possibly supplemented with data from the organisation itself. This creates a familiar and relevant story that resonates with the audience’s practice and challenges.
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