Stefaan van Hooydonk

Stefaan van Hooydonk is the founder of the Global Curiosity Institute. He consults global corporations, leadership teams, and individuals to help build stronger curiosity muscles. He helps them in baselining individual and workplace curiosity and supports them with designing and implementing intentional curiosity improvement projects and learning initiatives.

Hooydonk started his career in investment consulting in China. From there he moved to set up the executive education arm of a major business school in Shanghai, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), which he ran for 5 years. Subsequently, he set up global learning teams and innovative corporate universities for Nokia (China/Finland), Agfa Healthcare (Belgium), Philips (The Netherlands), Flipkart (India), Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia), and Cognizant (UK). His last role was that of Chief Learning Officer for Cognizant, where he oversaw learning and development for over 300k associates across the globe. He has been globally recognized for his innovative approach to learning, people, and technology.

Hooydonk has a master’s degree in Economics and in Chinese, together with postgraduate degrees in Marxist Economics from China, Cross-Cultural Management from France, and an Executive MBA from Rutgers University. He is a certified executive coach. A Belgian national, Hooydonk has been married for 25 years to Jeltje Peletier: a successful psycho- and yoga therapist. Together they have 4 children: Rik, Femke, Koen, and Menko. He practices meditation daily, is a marathon runner, and food forest amateur, and is pursuing a master’s degree in philosophy.