Stefaan Vandist

Speaker
Dutch
English
Stefaan Vandist

Who is Stefaan Vandist?

Stefaan Vandist spent the first ten years of his career as a brand strategist at the internationally acclaimed advertising agency Duval Guillaume. In the ten years that followed, he moved on to innovation strategy relating to sustainability issues. He brought with him his attitude of approaching challenges in an integral way and with a vision for the future.

Today he focuses on two activities: taking organisations on the path of exploring the future through lectures, and moderating design sprints. With a design sprint, you undertake a process from a strategic challenge to an innovative solution in four days together with a small team.

Stefaan has contributed to the future-proofing of organisations such as Gamma, Volvo Cars Netherlands, Unizo, the City of Antwerp, the Amsterdam metropolitan region, the municipality of Groningen, the fire brigade network and the Rotterdam Police.

His first book on exploration of the future ‘We, Myself & A.I.’ was published in 2018, and his second book ‘Citify’ will be published by Lannoo Campus in the autumn of 2021.  

Fixed elements in Stefaan's work include optimism of progress, innovation, and an integral approach. Most noteworthy is his admiration for creative breeding grounds worldwide where the future is already underway.   
 

    Citify. Urban solutions for a sustainable future

    All the solutions are there. They are just waiting for entrepreneurs and policymakers to get started. Sustainability is primarily an implementation task.

    Only 3% of our earth's surface is occupied by cities. Yet 85% of global GDP, 75% of raw material consumption, 50% of global waste and 80% of greenhouse gases are generated in the built-up environment. Every week, 1.5 million people worldwide move from rural areas to cities.

    Cities therefore harbour the greatest challenges, but also offer the most interesting solutions for creating a future-proof society. Moreover, cities and municipalities are the perfect testbeds and showrooms for sustainable transformation.

    During his Citify lecture, Stefaan Vandist enters into a dialogue with the audience. Via the smartphone, he lets the public help determine the most desirable future. He then takes participants on a pilgrimage along creative breeding grounds where the economy and society of the future are already on the rise. 

    Citify roars ahead as a kind of "dry tinder" of solutions around food, mobility, well-being, empowerment, local entrepreneurship, urbanisation and zero waste. In every case, Stefaan comes up with a strategic takeaway of practical tips for participants to get started on innovation themselves.

    The great thing is that many urban solutions are digitally scalable and don’t just apply to cities. Citify also offers businesses opportunities for both a collaborative and a competitive edge.  

    Citify can be performed in time slots of 25, 40 or 60 minutes.

    Pretopia: Get a grip on your future through a process of updates and upgrades

    After the curtain had finally fallen on the turbulent 2010s, Covid-19 was responsible for a false start to the transformative 2020s. Many futures are possible at the crossroads between dystopia and utopia. Philosophising about the "what, where and why" of sustainable transformation looks like becoming background music. A long period of "how" has begun, and creative minds are emerging around the world, displaying a context of new possibilities. There is a lot of improvisation and experimenting with prototypes for a new living environment, economy and society. 
    During Pretopia, Stefaan Vandist invites you to observe your own sector through future-exploring glasses. He steers you through challenging conceptual frameworks and along the most relevant innovation paths, helping you to estimate the impact and relevance of a wide variety of developments. With Pretopia, Stefaan enables you in a large or small group to quickly get a grip on your future. 

    Pretopia is furnished with innovation examples and insights tailored to your sector, and takes 90 minutes.  As an option, 90 minutes can be added for involvement of the participants. The resulting inspiration is applied in practice through design-thinking exercises. It concludes with a set of workable ideas with which to challenge the future.

    After the lecture, participants especially appreciate the inspiring wide perspective on exploring the future. They no longer see innovation as a marathon, but rather as a succession of short sprints that result in updates and upgrades of their organisation, network and product. 

     

    How to thrive in 2025?: Bringing your CSR policy to life strategically and creatively through your products, services, brands and corporate culture

    70% of Dutch companies have already defined a strategic purpose. However, every company finds it a challenge to translate that purpose into its corporate communication, brand strategy and product experience. 

    With the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Economic Forum's Great Reset, the European Green Deal and the EU Taxonomy in the background, this is now clear to everyone. Every company, large and small, will go through the green spray booth in the coming years. And that is only possible thanks to a process of 

    1. mapping out the impacts, 
    2. reducing negative impact through strategy and innovation,
    3. compensating and increasing positive impact through cooperation and 
    4. communicating about this transparently with society as a whole. 

    In "How to thrive in 2025", Stefaan Vandist introduces you to a broad spectrum of communication strategies that will help you to translate that sustainable transformation into your corporate PR, brand strategy and product experience. Illustrated with best practices, he unfolds a logic in which CSR is approached in an integral way and can be communicated consistently at all the touchpoints.

    At the end of the session, participants appreciate the new insight, overview and prospect for an integrated communication-oriented approach to sustainability. 

     

    Design Sprint: From a major strategic challenge to a creative solution that is prototyped and tested on real people. And that over four days.

    As a moderator, Stefaan Vandist has dozens of design sprints to his name. Straight out of the practical situation, he introduces you to this extremely unorthodox innovation strategy where brainstorming is banned, and where you work together in a small team from a strategic challenge to a creative solution that is prototyped and tested on real people. And that over four days.

    The methodology behind Design Sprint was developed by Google Ventures and is a “greatest hits” collection of business model design, insights from behavioural sciences, design thinking and more, packaged in a frequently tested process that you can use for a variety of innovation challenges. Organising a Sprint with your team will enable you to break the endless debate cycle and compress months of brainstorming, meetings, tests and assessments into less than a week. In just four days, a Sprint will give you an “unfair advantage”. 

    As an option, the lecture can be supplemented with a series of initiating exercises in which you get to know Design Sprint as a decision-making machine and as a generator of ideas. 

    After the lecture on Design Sprint, you will know how the method can be applied in your organization, how to approach your challenges with this and how it will provide a strong boost to the creative energy and motivation in your teams 

     

    A walking lecture: The inspiration safari through Rotterdam and Amsterdam

    Why are social workers interested in design bicycles? Why is a bank starting up an embassy for the circular economy?  Why is a hairdressing chain launching a school? And how do citizens together realise a dream of living on water, thanks to an online building platform? 

    These are all examples of consilient thinking: unusual collaborations that lead to unparalleled innovations. A lot of innovation based on cross-sectoral cross-fertilization can be found in the Dutch conurbation of Randstad. 

    A trend safari unlocks inspiration from the PowerPoint screen and develops this via a direct live experience. The trend safari in Rotterdam and Amsterdam starts on Wednesday evening and runs until Friday afternoon. The programme consists of 10% trend briefings, 70% visits to innovative projects and 20% reflection: application of trends and insights to one’s own business reality. Accommodation, lunch, dinner and travel are selected according to their innovation narrative. 
    The programme provides three things:

    • An overview of the divergent perspectives from which innovation comes, how it can redesign the value chain and give new meaning to the value proposition of organisations. 
    • Visits to projects with a look behind the scenes and testimonials from entrepreneurs and designers.
    • Two sessions that clarify the observations and give direction on how to get started with them in practice.

    The programme is determined according to availability and the background of the participants. Those participating in a trend safari appreciate how inspiration is motivated through an authentic experience, away from their daily concerns. They appreciate the networking opportunities among themselves and through the fascinating conversations with entrepreneurs. 

     

Stefan's energetic presentation and view into the future held the audience's attention from start to finish. An inspired, informal and enthusiastic speaker who backed up his story with surprising examples.

Olivier Van Duijn

Huidig CEO Litebit, toenmalig CEO eBay Nederland

Micro

Stefaan caught my attention during a seminar on how fast the retail world is changing. With the whole Volvo organisation (both dealers and importer), we are working hard together to create a new retail future. Stefaan has a steering role in this. The goal is to adapt the current retail system to the near future. During the process, it has become clear that change is faster and that the pace is increasing exponentially, rather than stabilising! Stefaan, thanks for your guide work through the future!
    

Jan van Roosmalen

Voorzitter Dealervereniging Volvo Dealers Nederland

Stefaan’s vision on CSR-strategy is refreshing, entertaining, energetic and still sparks ideas among our teams.

Henk Hofstede

Sector Banker Retail, ABN AMRO Bank

During a steaming and provoking process of business innovation thinking, Stefaan Vandist guided our international team to deeper insights and a spectrum of opportunities on how we can prepare ourselves to a new reality in real estate. We most appreciate his future oriented business creativity and sustainability thinking.

Patrick Meutermans

Head Benelux AEW Europe

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