Robert Jan van Leeuwen

About Robert Jan van Leeuwen

Robert Jan van Leeuwen is a creative entrepreneur at heart. With his full-service marketing communication agency 0to9, he realizes the ambitions of his local and (inter)national clients based on customer, brand, core, and organizational values. In December 2023, he published his first management book ‘The Journey of the Goose’. A book about mature leadership in childishly simple language that addresses the theme of ‘working and communicating on the foundation of (measured) values’. A fiction book about non-fiction based on over 10 years of research into values in organizations.

After working for many years in leadership positions at leading marketing communication agencies, Robert Jan knew he wanted to approach things differently. Over 20 years ago, he started his own company based on the belief that ‘every person on earth is creative. In some form’. From that disruptive vision, he developed a strategic creative agency that would never work for clients again, but only with clients. In 2023, 0to9 was named the best-rated agency in the Netherlands in the medium-sized category.

As an ADHD creative trained in disruptive thinking, Robert Jan has a continuous need to innovate but also to challenge every convention and go against the established order. Disruption is therefore the Ambition-Value of 0to9 Values-driven Creativity.

An organization is nothing more or less than the sum of the values of all employees

Where Robert Jan initially focused on communication alone, he later learned that you can add a deeper layer to that communication. Because what did he often notice? The executives, alongside communication and HR professionals, were usually his conversation partners, came up with grand, beautiful plans. About mission, vision, and multiple core values. Which were then not lived or felt at all by the employees who therefore did not embody them. In fact, often those employees (just like the executives themselves) could only name one or two core values. If you don’t even know them, how can you act according to them? And if it’s already a challenge for your executive team to name these core values, how can you expect your employees to behave accordingly?

Communication is a wonderful tool; you can achieve a lot with it. And… with his years of experience in various organizations, Robert Jan has come to realize that he needed to dive deeper. He needed to look at what was happening beneath the well-known iceberg. And that has led him to values. Because these values are the driving forces behind our behavior. And these values can be researched, measured. With a Values Research.

And with the rich insights that a Values Research provides, you can engage in an open dialogue. After which you can embark together on a common goal, the shared south of your organization. Where everyone has a place to fully develop their own talents. Because that is Robert Jan’s greatest dream: to make the Netherlands the happiest working country in the world.

At the end of 2023, Robert Jan published his first management book ‘The Journey of the Goose’. A fictional story about non-fiction based on over 10 years of research into working and communicating on the foundation of (measured) values. His vision on leadership and especially his message that everyone is allowed to be who they are. Robert Jan’s favorite question is not for nothing ‘Who are you’?