“Skills are the valuta of the future. It’s in reach for everyone to invest in, increase and apply on for example the 21st century challenges at hand. A logical place to start learning and applying these skills is in the workplace. As I believe in using business as force for good! My mission? Bringing radical innovation to work and workers, so people can be best in the world, but also for the world!” – Rowan
Meet Rowan Hordijk, currently 29 years old and proud founder of the company Circles of Future Skills! He started his social mission at the doorstep of Enactus Utrecht as co-founder of Enactus KlikStart. Nowadays Rowan continued his impactful journey to confront the challenges of the 21st century. Where his journey will take him? The sky is the limit!
A (r)evolution for work and workers
As an inspiring alumnus of Enactus Utrecht, Rowan is working hard in order to make his dream come true: a (r)evolution for work and workers through eliminating ‘human waste’ in order to reach ‘more human interest’! Why? So, people can obtain the mind and skillset of the future, enabling them to tackle current and future challenges. In and outside their work environment.
Rowan studied Cultural Anthropology and as his study progressed he realized that studying alone wouldn’t help him reach his purpose. For him this was one of the main reasons to make his entrance at Enactus. Which helped him develop an entrepreneurial mindset and make social impact simultaneously:
“Joining Enactus in 2013-2014 was the perfect addition to my current studies! Enactus provided me this golden opportunity to learn more about social entrepreneurship, and in turn teaching me more about the business aspect. A welcome addition to my studies.’’
Debut at Enactus: the start of Enactus KlikStart
After entering Enactus Rowan and his team came up with the idea to set up Enactus KlikStart. A company with the sole purpose to help elderly, 65 plus years old, gain the right digital skills and combat loneliness while at it. In 2014 there wasn’t anything like that in Utrecht, meaning an organization providing these services without direct subsidiary support of the government. Enactus KlikStart was a joint effort with the Rabobank Utrecht, the ROC Midden-Nederland and European Care Residence Utrecht. Long story short, their idea turned out quite well!
An amazing feat accomplished at a young age was indeed not without any caveats as Rowan mentioned:
“Despite learning more about setting up a successful startup formula, the road towards success was brimmed with many challenges: how do we reach out to the elderly? How do we convince the IT students from ROC to perform the computer classes? How do we get the right business partners on board? Examples of questions we had a hard time thinking of proper solutions. A lesson he learned; plan your execution and execute your plan!’’
Next destination: EY
After graduation of his master Culture, Organization and Management at the VU Amsterdam, Rowan started to work at EY, also known as Ernst & Young. In his role as People Strategy consultant he focused on cultural change and HR strategy within multinationals, start-ups and scale-ups. Rowan gradually learned how to apply his anthropological mind & skillset to the pressing business challenges of international or national clients. Since then he started to present himself as Corporate Anthropologist. As he was not so much studying exotic cultures in faraway places anymore, but the peculiar practices he noticed on the work floor and in the boardrooms.
A new reality of work: Circles of Future Skills
From 2019 and onwards, Rowan became the proud founder of Circles of Future Skills. As mentioned above, a company contributing to radical innovation while future-proofing the workforce of organizations, in order to tackle 21st century challenges. An example of a project or as he calls it, an Impact Circle, was with Dopper. Where he helped leaders and professionals obtain the right skills to achieve their mission of becoming CO2-neutral by 2030. Read more about it here.
In this so called VUCA world, meaning volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, there are several challenges which can be addressed by professionals and leaders, Rowan beliefs. Some of these challenges are: the digital transformation, circular transition, climate change, using business as force for good, the energy transition etcetera. All topics which require a future mind & skillset.
Rowan’s solution: combing business priorities, with people priorities by linking business growth, with people growth. His product is called an Impact Circle “the learning-on-the-job” model which facilitates people to learn while working on real business results in an accelerator process. In his view this is among other ‘the new reality of work’.
Media attention
Rowan’s own ‘circle’ is complete as he concludes the interview:
“First, I tried to improve the lives of homeless kids in Guatemala, then the lives of elderly by teaching them digital skills and nowadays I am on a mission to improve the working lives of adults.’’
Are you interested in learning more about Rowan, his mission and his company? Check out the Mama Gaia Talks to hear the full story. The Mama Gaia Talks are well-known for being the first online sustainability talk show introduced in the Netherlands, founded by the proud founder of Dopper, Merijn Everaarts.
Interested in more alumni stories?
Stay tuned for our upcoming alumni blog next month! You can read the other alumni stories on our website here in the meanwhile.
Author: Shazia Khan