Together Carola Wijdoogen and Elfrieke van Galen have over 40 years of experience in management and sustainability implementation. They want to apply their combined knowledge and share it with peers to support other CSR and sustainability professionals in their business endeavors. A large steps towards achieving this goal is enabling a platform in which colleagues can come together for peer-to-peer learning. Their journey towards their goal began in 2015 with the first CSR and Sustainability Intervision day and continues today with the State of the Sustainability Profession Events and Surveys.
ABOUT US
Carola Wijdoogen
Carola Wijdoogen is a leader among CSR professionals: in 2014 she was elected national CSR manager of the year and in 2017 she held position 11 on the ‘Sustainable Top-100’ of the Dutch national newspaper ‘Trouw’. The jury report highlighted her innovative work on sustainability reporting and renewable energy procurement. She was the first Director of Sustainability (CSO) at NS Netherlands National Railways from 2010 to 2019.
She started her career with NS as Chief Procurement Officer at NSR followed by Head of Portfolio Management and Innovation. Before NS, she was CEO of a consultancy business. She has a background in Business (Nyenrode University) and International Relations (SAIS Johns Hopkins University).
In 2016 Carola launched her nationally acclaimed book, “MVO doe je Zo”, which shares insights and expertise on the CSR profession. She began writing the book with the intention of exploring what sustainability managers actually do and what their added value to a company is. Carola identified, based on scientific research and with input from her CSR colleagues, the 7 roles of a CSR manager and their 8 competencies.
In 2017 Carola joined the ‘2 degrees’ expedition to the Arctic to take joint actions to reduce CO2 emissions. One of the outcomes from the expedition is the succesful bussiness coalition for sustainable mobility, which she co-initiated.
Next to Director of Sustainability University Foundation, Carola is also (board) member of:
- Supervisory Board Utrecht Science Park
- Advisory Board Business Radboud University
- Mobility Table – Climate Treaty Netherlands
- Advisory Board Sustainability Mobility Business Platform ‘Anders Reizen’
Other activities include: writing, strategic consulting, individual coaching, guest lectures, workshops and masterclasses at Nyenrode University and other universities. Some of her work has been published, such as the Whitepaper “A Case for System Indicators to Drive Change Toward Sustainable Mobility” which she co-authored as a Visiting Fellow at Yale.
Carola continues her work to advance the profession of CSR manager today as she is working on an international version of “MVO doe je Zo” in English.
Elfrieke van Galen
Elfrieke, partner at TheRockGroup, has a legal background and extensive management experience in the logistics and service industries. She has impressive international work experience in sustainability and CSR with over 20 years experience in the aviation industry as Managing Director of KLM Cityhopper, KLM’s UK CEO, Senior Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Communication at KLM. Elfrieke has experience in a wide spectrum of roles and responsibilities. She has worked in the areas of strategy, operations, and implementation.
Elfrieke followed her passion for CSR and sustainability and is partner at TheRockGroup, a young ambitious and fast-growing consulting firm, driving the transition towards a sustainable economy and society. At TheRockGroup Elfrieke works on a multiple fronts to embed sustainability and CSR into all facets of society and business under TheRockGroup’s three business lines. Under the Education business line, Elfrieke and her colleagues work to educate both young students and professionals through university lectures, trainings, workshops and more. Through the Sustainable Business Development Elfrieke and her colleagues aid young sustainable businesses in reaching their targets and full potential through coaching, mentoring, and unburdening to various degrees. Under Sustainable Strategy and Implementation at TheRockGroup she and her colleagues work with a range of businesses from SMEs to large multinationals to embed sustainability into their core processes.
As an ambitious professional, aside from being Director of Sustainability University Foundation and her work at TheRockGroup, Elfrieke is also on the board of many different companies such as:
- Director of enerGQmobility
- Board member of the Dutch Emissions Authorities
- Supervisory Board member of Meerlanden, Ymere, GITP, and Arcadis NL
- Past board member Green Deal Board
- Non-executive board member of SEKEM, Egypt
- Thought Leader on Sustainability in Supervisory Boards