Presentator, Journalist
"Out and about with the CEO of Philips, the casting director, the football agent, and the ultra-wealthy scrap metal dealer. What does power do to people?"
As a journalistic traveler through the news, I’ve had the privilege of encountering leaders in various parts of the world—very often powerful men, surrounded by yes-men. It led me to ask: What does power do to people? And how do those around them respond to the often isolating nature of leadership?
I created a series about it: M.A.C.H.T.—with periods between the letters to emphasize its weight. I profiled Gerard Kleisterlee (the top executive at Philips), Rob Jansen (the country’s leading football agent), Job Gosschalk (influential casting director for film and television stars), and Henk Swanenberg (a scrap metal trader from Brabant who conquered the world with just three words of English).
I discovered that many careers are built on a drive to compensate—a dominant father, a troubled youth, a rejection along the way. Few great careers exist without, metaphorically speaking, blood on their hands.
Philips’ Gerard Kleisterlee struck me as the most balanced figure in the theater of power. He turned out to be shy—asking a colleague after a meeting: “Was I too harsh today?” A mild, diplomatic man.
Yet he would go on to become the most ruthless reformer Philips ever had. A surprising lesson: even the most amiable leader can be relentlessly tough. At KRO, the series M.A.C.H.T. later became a source of inspiration for my colleague Marc Josten to launch the program Profiel.