General Counsel Academy
Meet our Lead Instructors and Faculty Team
Our Lead Instructors are the very best in their profession. They are affiliated with excellent Business Schools in various countries or are otherwise world-class experts and they enjoy to link their field of expertise with the most current challenges of ambitious General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers. The content of their contributions is continuously tested against the actual challenges of the participants and a lot of time is allocated for relevant cases and breakouts with GC peers. The Faculty Team ensures that the participants lack nothing, so that the GCs can fully focus on the program and have not only a sensational educational experience but also have a great time.
Meet our Lead Instructors
Prof. Dr. Hans van Oosterhout
Prof. Dr. Hans van Oosterhout
Professor J. (Hans) van Oosterhout is a professor of Corporate Governance at the Department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
His research is on comparative corporate governance, involving both comparisons between different national corporate governance systems (for listed firms), and comparisons between different forms of ownership and enterprise organization.
His current research focuses on how active ownership strategies in different types of firms and across different countries drive the strategic choices and performance outcomes of firms.
Professor Van Oosterhout has published extensively in journals including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He has held visiting positions at the Australian National University and as a visiting full professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2016.
Professor Van Oosterhout obtained an MA Cum Laude in political science from Leiden University and a Ph.D. in Management from Erasmus University.
Prof. Dr. Vareska van de Vrande
Prof. Dr. Vareska van de Vrande
Vareska van de Vrande is Professor of Collaborative Innovation and Business Venturing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
Vareska joined RSM in 2007 after completing a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Vareska’s expertise focuses on the areas of corporate venturing and collaborative innovation, including external technology sourcing, corporate venture capital investments, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Other research interests include (corporate) entrepreneurship, patents, and venture capital.
She has published articles in leading academic journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Journal of Business Venturing.
At RSM, Vareska teaches courses and modules in Strategic Management and Corporate Venturing at different levels.
In addition, Vareska is also the director of the Part-time PhD Programme in Management at RSM, a visiting professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, the founder of two web-portals on open innovation (www.openinnovatie.nl and www.openinnovation.eu), and a certified LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator.
Prof. Dr. Pursey Heugens
Prof. Dr. Pursey Heugens
Professor Pursey Heugens is a professor of Organisation Theory, Development, and Change at the Department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
His research interests include comparative corporate governance, business ethics, and bureaucracy, institutional, and demographic theories of organisation.
Professor Heugens has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He currently serves on the editorial boards of six scholarly journals. His research has been published in academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, and the Journal of Management Studies.
His most recent works argues that the field of organisation theory is locked into a state of permanent failure due to powerful centrifugal forces which prevent it from producing a unified theory of organisational effectiveness – while equally strong centripetal forces keep university administrators and policymakers from cashing in their chips.
He offers three research strategies that might end the stalemate by increasing the integration, relevance, and realism of current theories of organisation.
Prof. Dr. Cees van Riel
Prof. Dr. Cees van Riel
Prof. Emiritus Dr. Cees B.M. van Riel is a Dutch organizational theorist, who is specialized in reputation management and has published 15 books and more than 100 articles on this topic. He is a well know presenter at international management meetings and the founder of the Executive Master of Corporate Communication Program at Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University. He is also the founder of the Reputation Institute, a globally active consultancy firm he started in 1997 together with Charles Fombrun of Stern Business School.
Bjarne P. Tellmann
Bjarne P. Tellmann
Bjarne P. Tellmann is a seasoned public company General Counsel with 30 years of global legal leadership experience. He is the CEO of FjordStream Advisors, a boutique consultancy that specializes in organizational excellence, digital transformation, and talent development for the legal industry. Bjarne is also a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School and a Senior Fellow at London School of Economics.
Previously, Bjarne was the General Counsel and Executive Committee Member at Haleon, a FTSE 20 company and the world’s largest consumer healthcare business. He co-led Haleon’s historic de-merger from GSK, the largest spin-off and stock exchange listing in modern UK history, and subsequently transformed and optimized its 200+ person legal, compliance, and security teams.
As Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Pearson, a FTSE 100 global education leader, Bjarne re-designed and digitized its 200+ legal function, cutting costs by over 40% while improving service quality. His career spans senior roles across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the U.S. at Coca-Cola, Aramco, Kimberly-Clark, and global law firms Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and White & Case LLP.
A thought leader in legal technology and innovation, Bjarne teaches and publishes regularly on leadership, disruption, and digital transformation in the legal profession. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Building an Outstanding Legal Team: Battle-Tested Strategies from a General Counsel, and recently co-authored a law review article on digital transformation in corporate legal departments.
His new book ‘The gathering storm: How AI is transforming Legal Departments & Law Firms’ will be published in January 2026. Bjarne was an Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Law and is a founding faculty member of the Digital Legal Exchange, a nonprofit advising legal teams on digital transformation. He has lectured regularly at various academic institutions, including Columbia Law School, Yale Law School, The London School of Economics, and Dartmouth Tuck Business School, as well as for numerous professional and corporate programmes and at academic conferences worldwide.
Bjarne sits on The Futures Group of the UK Civil Justice Council, advising the UK government on the long-term impact of technology on justice. He is also an advisor to The University of Chicago Law School, Boston University, and Lex Mundi, the world’s largest network of law firms, and he holds and has held board positions at numerous public and private companies globally.
Bjarne is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, The University of Chicago, The London School of Economics, and Boston University. His professional honours include General Counsel of the Year at the British Legal Awards, Legends in the Law at the Burton Awards, Chambers’ GC Influencers Global 100 Award, and Legal Era’s General Counsel of the Year.
Wanne Wiersinga
Wanne Wiersinga
Wanne Wiersinga joined Hofstede Insights in 2002. She has gained culture, personality & management consulting experience for several years. Her consulting activities assist leaders, managers and professionals from global companies to actively manage their international activities in the most effective way.
Clients report they work together with Wanne because she increases the effectiveness of the behavioral repertoire of the professional she works with. Wanne has a desire to help people, to make the most of human potential. She has a great interest in cultural differences, between nations as well as organizations.
Wanne has always been interested in the differences in thinking, feeling, and acting of people. She has lived in Indonesia, The Netherlands (home-country), Mexico, and Japan. She has been traveling all her life through Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Africa.
Her knowledge about people and intercultural processes was developed during her studies organizational psychology at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands; international communication and management processes at the Utrecht School of Governance and Management and international negotiations at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. She received her Master of Science degree at the Utrecht University and finished the Japan Prizewinners Programme, a one-year postgraduate course to get familiar with Japanese business practices.
Because of her scientific approach, and professionalism, she was offered a license of Hofstede Insights. She took the license to set up a new division within Hofstede Insights with a special focus on Culture & Personality.
Kevin Murray
Kevin Murray
Kevin Murray has been advising leaders and leadership teams around the world for the past three decades. He has worked across a wide variety of sectors, often having to help leaders to deal with significant change programmes as well as a range of other business challenges including, sometimes, managing crises and issues, always working closely with general counsel. He has also provided personal coaching for many of these leaders, helping them to become more inspiring.
Kevin is author of the best-selling books The Language of Leaders, Communicate to Inspire, and People with Purpose. His books have been published by Kogan Page and were finalists in the Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year Awards. They have been published in many languages around the world.
His latest book is called “The Charismatic Leader” and was published in February 2020.
He has interviewed more than 120 CEOs for his research, and commissioned ground breaking studies involving 5000 managers and 8000 employees to understand what most inspires, engages and motivates employees. As a result of his books and his research, Kevin now gives talks and workshops on leadership around the world.
He has himself been a successful businessman, having led the biggest public relations and communications group in the UK for more than 15 years. He has 40 years of experience in communications, change management and leadership, first as a journalist, then in corporate communications, and in consultancy. Previously, he was Director of Communications for British Airways, and before that Director of Corporate Affairs for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (AEA).
He started his career as a crime reporter on The Star newspaper in South Africa, in 1973, and has also written a chart-topping crime novel, Blood of The Rose.
Meet our Faculty Team
Michiel van Straaten
Michiel van Straaten - Faculty Chair
Michiel is the Faculty Chair of the General Counsel Academy. He is also the Community Chair of General Counsel Netherlands, the largest professional network for General Counsel in The Netherlands.
After graduating from the Leiden University Law School (LLM) and serving as Lieutenant at the Dutch Royal Navy, Michiel worked sequentially as a private practice lawyer at Houthoff – one of the largest Law firms in the Netherlands -, as Company Secretary at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and as a (Managing) Partner at Legal People – a leading executive search consultancy for legal professionals. Subsequently he joined De Goudse – a respectable mid-size insurance Company in NL – as General Counsel and Company Secretary to the Executive and Supervisory board until 2010. He joined GCN in 2009, followed by GCA in 2016.
Melanie Maas
Melanie Maas - Program Manager
After completing her Hospitality Business & Hotel Management School and studies at the University of Amsterdam, Melanie worked as a Manager Education and Project Manager at various companies and organisations. She is the spider in the web of the various GCA Programs and Courses and the first point of contact for all questions of interested GCs, participants, Alumni and Lead Instructors.
