ABOUT ME

I’m a freelance Brand Director in the Tech-for-Good space by day and a cartoonist by night.

Most people know me as the writer of the famous yellow brand guide and founder of the training company by the same name: Brand The Change.

I aspire to be a mono-tasker, but life’s just too short.

I trained as a designer at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. I honed my craft at some of the Netherlands’ most renowned brand agencies—Studio Dumbar and Lava—before becoming a creative director at Interbrand.

In 2013, I stepped away from the agency world to launch Brand The Change in Nairobi, a company that trains social entrepreneurs and changemakers in brand-building skills.

Alongside my work at Brand The Change, I’ve remained a hands-on practitioner. As a freelance Brand Director, I collaborate with some of the most exciting startups emerging from Africa today.

My work has taken me across four continents, shaping my perspective through diverse cultures and problem-solving approaches.

Since 2015, Kenya has been home, where I live with my husband, Gautam, our small human, and two persistently annoying cats.

Follow me on Linkedin for all things brand and content-related. Follow me on Instagram for my cartooning work.

👋 Need a bio in the third person?
Find it on the press page.

the brag list

PERSONAL

Born and raised in the Netherlands, I’ve lived and/or worked in 12 countries: 🇦🇺Australia, 🇺🇸 USA, 🇲🇱 Mali, 🇫🇷 France, 🇰🇷 Korea, 🇬🇧 UK, 🇹🇼 Taiwan, 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia, 🇹🇳 Tunisia, 🇯🇴 Jordan. I call 🇰🇪 Kenya home since 2015.

My TED talk has about 9,000 views, my husband’s has 1 million+. Marriage is not a competition, but he is winning.

CAREER Achievements

I was put in charge of the rebrand of the largest phone company in the Netherlands at age 25 (and we both survived to tell the tale).

I quit a perfectly good role as a creative director at Interbrand and moved to Kenya to set up Brand The Change.

I built a team, a community, and a group of certified trainers to spread our work worldwide. My method and tools are used by more than 10,000 people worldwide.

I’ve written two books: the highly rated classic brand guidebook, Brand The Change, published worldwide and translated to Arabic and Korean, and Coming to America 2024, a graphic novel memoir.

I ran two successful crowdfunding campaigns, raising $120,000 for creative projects.

teaching

I love to learn, and the best way to learn is to teach.

I’ve taught design at renown universities like the Design Academy (Eindhoven), Hong-Ik (Seoul), and the University of Venice.

I create learning experiences for some pretty awesome causes: women entering the job market in Saudi Arabia, young micro entrepreneurs in Kenya on TikTok, and I even got the Dutch Ministry of Defense to re-imagine itself as the Ministry of Peace (if only for a day).

Board memberships

I served on the board of the Dutch Designers Association for three years, and was a member of the industry advisory committee for the Willem de Kooning Academy, helping to establish their Master in Design program. I am also proud to be on the Board of Advisors for Book Bunk, a not-for-profit restoring Nairobi’s iconic libraries.

Awards

🏆🏆🏆 In my previous life as a designer, I won a European Design Award, an ADCN pencil, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Chaumont Poster Biennale.

Press + Public speaking

I’m really chuffed that world class platforms like Skoll, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Eye and the Huffington Post publish my writing.

Every now and then I do some public speaking. My favorite stages are at the Happy Startup School, Amani Institute and Acumen.

watch a talk

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