Marilieke Engbers Phd.

About Marilieke Engbers

Marilieke Engbers has more than 20 years of experience as an advisor in leadership, culture, learning, and change. She defended her dissertation on October 14, 2020, on “how the unsaid influences strategic decision-making in boards” at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She combines teaching about strategy realization for the controller program at the Vrije Universiteit with speaking on governance, leadership, and the unsaid, along with consulting work on board effectiveness, self-evaluations, strategy, and leadership. Based on her doctoral research and her consulting work, Marilieke has developed a method that improves decision-making and the speaking culture in the boardroom.

As co-director of the Research Center for Board and Leadership Development, she also focuses on scientifically researching decision-making in the boardroom and ‘the practice of corporate governance’. During her doctoral studies, Marilieke was commissioned by the Authority for Housing Corporations to investigate how commissioners monitor the risks associated with long-serving executives.

In 2019, Marilieke published the Dutch report ‘Power and Counterpower’. Based on this report, a guide was also developed by the Association of Supervisors of Housing Corporations. This guide aims to facilitate the difficult conversation about the performance of the executive. She also publishes articles. Currently, she is working on a management book in collaboration with the Dutch publisher Business Contact about board decision-making processes.