Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations

Professor Dianne Bevelander was the Founder and Executive Director of Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations. She served for many years as the Associate Dean for MBA Programmes as well as a Statutory Director of the RSM BV, the company through which Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) offers its MBA programmes and executive education portfolio. A Professor of Management Education at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) Dianne led the empowerment of women at RSM and across the broader EUR.  Always leading through innovation, she designed a women's only elective at RSM – the RSM Women Empowering Women Kilimanjaro Leadership Project – which ran for several years and focused on the empowerment of women aspiring to leadership roles using Mount Kilimanjaro as an outside classroom, and as a metaphor for business. In 2014, she founded and took up the role of Executive Director of ECWO - a research, teaching and advocacy centre. At ECWO she developed and ran Women in Leadership Executive courses and Masterclasses, impacting women in their personal leadership journeys within organisations, as well as society more broadly. Within EUR, among other initiatives, she played a pivotal role in the establishment of the EUR Women in Academia programme for ambitious female academics - which ECWO facilitated. Among many other accolades, Dianne was honoured by Female Academics Moving toward Equity (FAME) in 2019 when she received the Athena Award – established to honour university staff members who have made an exceptional effort to promote female talent.

Prof. Hanneke Takkenberg is Professor of Management Education focusing on Women in Business at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Executive Director of Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO). A key part of Hanneke’s current work is as part of the European Commission-funded Horizon2020 EQUAL4EUROPE research project that aims to develop and implement Gender Equality Plans in European Universities. She also facilitates within RSM’s Executive Education's women in business programmes, ECWO’s Open Masterclasses and RSM’s MBA, with a focus on gender balanced leadership. Hanneke’s work is broadly focused on empowering and connecting women to drive their individual careers forward, as well as achieving gender equality globally through advocacy and world leading research. An active promoter of female leadership, particularly in academic medicine, Hanneke is also a professor of clinical decision-making in cardio-thoracic interventions at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. She founded VENA, the Erasmus MC women's network of academics, in 2007, and has been the chair of the Erasmus University Network for Female Professors (ENVH) board since 2014. In 2021 she was awarded Female Academics Moving toward Equity’s (FAME) Athena Award for university staff members who have made an exceptional effort to promote female talent.

Dorothy Grandia is Associate Director of Programming for the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations, where she has contributed to the development and delivery of gender-balanced leadership programming since its inception in 2014. Since 2005, she has helped clients working primarily in STEM industry contexts to recognize and exploit the difference between objective and subjective decision-making in their communication strategy. With that awareness, her clients then learn to increase their influence by synthesizing complex information into clear, engaging, and convincing messages delivered in a persuasive manner. Her interest in communication as a tool of influence on business and policy decision-making evolved out of early career experience in the United States as a legislative aide in the political system of the State of Texas. After leaving politics, she graduated with an MM in Vocal Performance from the New School University/Mannes College of Music and performed as a professional operatic soprano for many years. She also holds a BA in Asian Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2016 she has been a coach and co-teacher on the Art of Communication elective in INSEAD MBA programmes, and since 2018 has been telling the story of the potential of artificial intelligence to create a faster, smoother, and more profitable transition to sustainable energy on behalf of Professor Wolfgang Ketter.

Michael Page is Professor of Finance and Management and a past Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bentley University in Massachusetts, United States of America. Before joining Bentley, Mike served as the Dean of Post-Experience Programmes at Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management and as the Executive Director of the Rotterdam School of Management BV, The Netherlands. He joined Erasmus after sixteen years at Cape Town University’s Graduate School of Business where he also held the Len Abrahamse Chair in Finance.  Mike has completed full terms of office on the boards of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, International), the EFMD and South Africa Partners. His active engagement with the international management education industry includes serving on advisory boards for Cape Town University’s Graduate School of Business (South Africa), École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées School of Management, Paris (France), Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations, Rotterdam (The Netherlands), European School of Management and Technology, Berlin (Germany), Kedge Business School, Bordeaux and Marseille (France), Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow (Russia). Mike’s thirty years as business school academic includes having held professorships in finance, executive education, and management, and senior academic administrative positions on three continents. He has held company directorships and worked as a senior consultant and fund management advisor. His current research interests are targeted at diversity and inclusion, particularly with respect to the progression of women in organisations.

Diane Coetzer is ECWO’s senior project manager. With roots in anti-apartheid journalism and a 25-year career as an independent journalist, writer, editor and communications project consultant in South Africa, Diane brings a diversity of experience and skills to her role within the ECWO team. Among her responsibilities at ECWO is communications, strategic marketing, events management and relationship management with both the centre’s internal and external stakeholders. In line with her longstanding commitment to gender equality, Diane is actively working to increasing ECWO’s impact across all areas of the centre’s work including executive education programmes, research and advocacy.

Since ECWO’s inception in 2014, Rianne has been responsible for managing the majority of ECWO’s open and in-company programmes. In her new role of Client and Operations Manager she is working on expanding ECWO’s highly-customised programme offering, organising the annual ECWO conference and other events as well as nurturing the long-term client relationships that are critical to ECWO’s mission. Rianne has previously worked at the MBA Career Development Department and contributed to the growing portfolio of RSM Executive Education Programmes.

Kirsten Kardijk graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2023 with an MSc in Sociology, specialising in Governance of Migration and Diversity, and Engaging Public Issues. Driven by a passion for creating a more inclusive society through critically questioning societal norms, she joined ECWO as a researcher in 2022. Initially, she contributed to the EQUAL4EUROPE project, focusing on gender equality in academic institutions. Currently, her research is centred on defining and measuring inclusion within organisations. She explores which dimensions of inclusion employees value most and how inclusion can be quantified.

As Director of Coaching|Lead Coach at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), Hetty Brand-Boswijk’s expertise is called upon to advise Faculty and Programme teams on the development of Leadership and (Team/Group) Coaching Programmes. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active, Certified NeuroTransformational Coach and a Certified Relational Trauma Coach, and has the Professional Certified Coach credential from the International Coaching Federation. She is also a life-long Ambassador of the ICF in the Netherlands. On an individual coaching level, she has extensive experience in working with international clients focused on identifying limiting personal, business and/or relationship beliefs/behaviours, coaching for the development of a resonant balance between ‘doing’ and ‘being’, helping leaders identify a more empathic approach to themselves and their teams. Hetty’s clients include individuals from corporations, government agencies and non-profit organisations from across the globe. Included in her extensive experience is the role of Lead Coach for the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) where she coaches female clients from organisations that support gender balanced leadership and women empowerment.

Dr Joana Vassilopoulou is a Senior Lecturer for Women in Organisations at RSM and part of the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) team at RSM. Her research focuses on race and gender equality at work, highly skilled migrants, migration, diversity management and talent management, from a critical and international comparative perspective. She is currently the RSM Research lead for the EQUAL4EUROPE Horizon2020 project. The EU-funded project, consisting of six European universities, will develop and implement tailored gender equality plans in order to realise sustainable cultural and institutional change. Joana has an established academic and professional record in the field of diversity and inclusion, and is frequently invited to deliver talks. She has experience in hosting and organizing large academic conferences in the field of diversity and inclusion and has provided extensive academic service such as being a member of the all-academy theme committee for the 2019 Academy of Management (AOM) meeting. Joana organised and chaired the international Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) conference at RSM in 2019 and in the UK in 2016. Her international academic appointments have spanned the fields of organisational behaviour, human resource management, international business and corporate social responsibility. Joana served as an Associate Editor of the European Management Review (EMR) for five years and was a board member of the European Academy of Management (EURAM). She is currently editing a special issue for the Academy of Management Discoveries journal (AMD) and will be serving as an editor for the journal Work, Employment & Society (WES) from January 2021. She has published in edited collections and journals such as Work, Employment and Society, the European Journal of Industrial Relations, International Business Review and the International Journal of Human Resource Management. Dr Vassilopoulou is the recipient of a visiting scholarship at Sydney University’s business school (2017); winner of the Transnational Best Paper Award at the American Academy of Management conference (2012); and the recipient of University of East Anglia’s Norwich Business School Diversity and Equality in Careers and Employment Research PhD scholarship (2007-2010).

She has a PhD in Management from Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia and her Social Science/Sociology diploma from the University Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Dr Natalie Cleton is adjunct faculty at the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) at the Rotterdam School of Management and Team Leader at Wageningen University, Food Safety Research Department. Her main interest areas are Diversity and Personal leadership. During her career she has always prioritised helping women recognise and develop their own potential as current or future leaders. With an extensive background in STEM she is also able to combine research with personal experience in the class room. For ECWO Natalie has run in-company workshops on Networking and Diversity and is tasked with developing new workshops to expand ECWO’s portfolio. Within her research field of Public Health, she has designed and facilitated a large range of workshops for academics and members of professional organisations. Additionally, she has been an invited speaker at multiple international conferences. Natalie has a DVM in Veterinary Medicine and a MA in Applied Ethics from Utrecht University and obtained a PhD in Virology and Specialisation in Veterinary Microbiology from Erasmus University Medical Centre.

Wiley Davi is Professor of English and Media Studies at Bentley University, a premier business university near Boston, Mass. In addition to teaching, she is part of Bentley's Executive Education team and Center for Women and Business. She has provided diversity training for faculty and staff across the university and as a consultant to other educational institutions, specifically addressing gender, race, and LGBT issues. Her teaching and research interests span the fields of writing, diversity, gender studies, leadership, and service-learning. She is co-author of the book  Leading with Uncommon Sense and has published articles and delivered international conference presentations on the intersections of race, gender, leadership and teaching. Wiley’s interest in metacognition and leadership led her to co-design an intensive leadership course in Bentley’s innovative MBA program, which she co-taught for five years. Wiley holds a Ph.D. from Tufts University in Massachusetts.

Specialist in Executive Coaching and Entrepreneurial Mentoring, insightful and open-minded, Dr Stéphanie Mitrano accompanies organisations such as Airbus, Atos-Worldline, CMA CGM, Gemalto, Chanel, EDF and Renault, in their cultural transformation to support innovation.

She has coached entrepreneurs and senior executives of multinationals such as BP, Virgin Atlantic and Accenture in London for over 10 years. She has worked on the engineering of High Potential and “intrapreneurial” mentoring programmes (SAP Brazil, Groupe Caisse d’Epargne, Kempinski hotels) since 2007.

Since 2009 she coaches and trains CEOs, Managing Directors, senior managers and entrepreneurs to help them with team alignment and transformation as well as business agility. She continues to design and support mentoring programmes and trains mentors in various corporations to support transformation strategies: diversity, digital, innovation. Stéphanie has been involved in corporate and not-for-profit women’s programmes as a trainer to equip women with skills to navigate difficult situations, as a mentor to inspire their growth and as Professional Women Network chapter president to encourage them to support each other.

Dr. Karen Stephenson is classically trained as an anthropologist at Harvard University. She was appointed the H. Smith Richardson Fellow by the Center for Creative Leadership, which operates on five campuses in the Americas, Europe and Asia. She was also the first appointee of the Kathryn Hepburn Fellowship at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, PA, USA, in recognition of her ground-breaking work in the social sciences. Karen has been hailed in Business 2.0 magazine as ‘the organization woman’ and named as one of only four women in Random House’s Guide to Management Gurus. Her innovative research on the workplace and the corporate office was featured by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker magazine. She is a pioneer in the field of social network theory and an expert on network management. With over two decades of teaching at UCLA, Harvard and Yale, she has been an Associate Professor of Management at RSM, Erasmus University, The Netherlands for ten years.