Ruud Janssen – A Curious Human

When I first met Ruud, I was intimidated. He is intelligent and has a worldliness about him, but I quickly realized this feeling of mine was not necessary because he is so generous with sharing his time and ideas and always curious for new viewpoints. He seeks always to create open environments for discussion. Through a career that has led him from hotels to entrepreneurship and design he has had a clear focus on creating a more collaborative industry. After you spend very little time with him you see he is truly passionate about what we do collectively and open to ideas and the people they come with.

His overwhelming curiosity has taken him around the world to seek new inputs and to find points of intersection where events can be designed to be worthwhile and transformative, and this serves the industry well. Ultimately in his work with Event Model Generation and the development of the Event Design Canvas with Roel and Dennis they have opened a new way of thinking about events with an empathetic view focused on a multiple stakeholder approach for results to be delivered. While this is a lot of big words, they humanize the experience of design, making it accessible to the most experienced, and the novice planners. Prototyping and testing are not buzzwords but a way of life, and this year was his third, and my first at his initial inspiration at the College of Extraordinary Experiences, where this is part of the immersive experience we all bring to life. The CoEE is indeed this, a collection of global citizens delving into designing better human experiences across a spectrum of properties from films to art to permanent immersive venues, events and more.

More importantly, he is good fun to spend time with, loves his family, good wine and food, travel, and the puppies who rule his roost. He also has an in to summer truffles if you happen to be in the region at the right time!