New Director of Human Resources: Carolien Arents

IDH is happy to announce the appointment of Carolien Arents as its new Director of Human Resources & Talent Management, effective April 15.

Carolien brings over 20 years’ experience working in Human Resources in both public, private and civil society sectors taking on various managerial and executive roles. She started her career in the Royal Netherlands Air Force working in different roles, from operational to strategic, and is a veteran due to a UN mission to the Middle East, amongst others.

Carolien built up her experience in the private industry with Heineken, Syngenta and Strauss, gaining insights in agribusiness, commodities and consumer products, taking international responsibilities in the HR area. In recent years, she worked for the Helicopter Services industry, in regions stretching from Kazakhstan to Equatorial Guinea, and lived and worked in Morocco for some time. She also worked and lived in Ethiopia for a short period, for MSF.  Throughout her career Carolien has been a trainer in leadership development, holding a degree in Administration and HR from the Royal Military Academy and attended trainings at a number of universities.

I am arriving at this organization at a pivotal point where we must design strategies for the future. HR strategies impact the organizational culture, and how we sustain and support people. HR represents more than anything the integrity pillar of our values. This means we need to build on trust and solicit input from our colleagues. I am very much looking forward to initiating this process and working with everyone at IDH.

Carolien’s HR professionalization and ability to embrace challenging organizational situations head-on to create solutions will be a huge asset to IDH.