Who?

Who’s the change agent? She’s Kirsten van den Hul. Sovietologist, Arabist, change catalyst, columnist, author. Dutch UN Women’s Representative 2011. Inspirational speaker, visiting lecturer, host.

Started her professional life at the Fund for Central and East European Book Projects, a small NGO supporting independent publishers in Eastern Europe, and Mama Cash, an international women’s fund financing pioneering projects worldwide. Facilitated participatory art projects with young people in Eastern Europe and North Africa at the European Cultural Foundation. Moved to Tunisia, where she studied Arabic and worked as a trainer of business English for the American-Tunisian Chamber of Commerce.
Back in Amsterdam, she worked at LPG multinational SHV Gas, organised and hosted weekly talkshows for WOMEN Inc., developed corporate and cultural events for Cultuurfabriek and set up a platform for Corporate Social Responsibility for Foundation Hart voor Amsterdam.

An independent change agent since 2007, facilitating participatory change projects for a wide range of public and private clients including Zuidas Amsterdam (multistakeholder management, neighborhood development, events), Nike (with This Memento, participatory consumer research and strategy development) the Dutch Ministry for Education, Culture and Science (stakeholder sessions and Kracht on Tour). In 2013, she joined the European Elections Programme Committee of PvdA (Dutch Labour Party).

From 2011-2014 The Change Agent wrote a weekly column for Dutch daily AD.
From 2015 she’s a columnist at Dutch daily Trouw.

In October 2013, she launched her first book: (S)hevolution, de eeuw van de vrouw (the century of women) published by Atlas Contact. Read more on the (S)hevolution here!

In November 2013, Kirsten van den Hul received the Joke Smit Prijs from Minister Bussemaker. The Joke Smit Prijs is a bi-annual lifetime achievement award from the Dutch government for people or organisations working to achieve gender equality.

Kirsten is a guest lecturer at Amsterdam University and The Hague University of Applied Science. Furthermore, Kirsten is a member of the Board of the Dutch Red Cross and a member of the International Committee of the Dutch Labour party PvdA.