John van Duursen, born 1971. Married, two children.
(M)BA degrees in International Business and Environmental Management.
I started my first company in 1994 and held it for 4 years. I have worked as a painter in Australia, as an international consultant and as an account manager for multinationals prior to moving into the development space. I was engaged in several projects concerning nature conservation and eco-tourism in Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. In 2003, Derk Norde and I initiated research on sustainability in the cocoa supply chain (mainstream) in Ghana and co-founded Fair Ventures.
As a co-founder and director of the Business in Development (BiD) Foundation, I unite my commercial, business- and entrepreneurial personality with a passion and ambition for sustainable business creation in developing countries. Within the BiD Network, I had responsibilities on managing our partners, the roll-out of the BiD Model to other countries and commercial developments.
I have left BiD Network in 2009 to focus on ecosystem conservation and restoration through business. Since then, I have set up The Nature Challenge for WWF and became the program manager "Green Entrepreneurship" with HIVOS in May 2010.
Geluk,
John
