Brilliant Entrepreneur was established in 2014 by Yvette van Dok and Karen Kammeraat. Together they have more than 50 years of experience in emerging economies in the areas of gender, women empowerment, business, economic and financial development.
They concluded that personal development and self reflection is lacking in current business development services, and that this is exactly what would make the program interesting to women entrepreneurs. Thus, the Talent-in-Business program was born.
Yvette's talent is 'to make people move'. She studied Business and Consumer Science at the Agricultural University in Wageningen. Since than she lived and worked for 15 years in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Back in the Netherlands she started her own business focussing on talent development and strengthening women entrepreneurship globally. She believes that everybody in the world deserves to develop his/her talent. This will contribute to professional growth, happy lives and a better world!
Karen's talent is 'to make something fun out of the ordinary'. She studied Industrial Design Engineering and Advanced Development Studies, worked for 10 years at Oxfam Netherlands and lived and worked in Tanzania. She runs her own consultancy business since 2009, with a focus on economic development in emerging economies, sustainable production and consumption. She also operates as an informal investor (business angel). Working with SME entrepreneurs gives her energy.
Besides the team members that are involved on a permanent basis, we also have a large circle of freelancers around us. We invite them to assist when we train a big group, or when we need specific expertise, such as pitching, strategic management, quality management, intercultural communication, and much more.
Pauline's talent is making people happy. She helps Karen and Yvette, for example, with creating beautiful newsletters, Facebook posts, fact sheets and images on the website.
Hessel designs and makes the website, and keeps everything digital up and running.
We always implement our programs in cooperation with local partners, who have small and medium sized businesses as their target group. Their network, expertise and knowledge of the business culture in the country are crucial to make our program a success for the participants. The best results are achieved when our Talent-in-Business approach is part of a larger, holistic program for entrepreneurs. Long term partners are WEAC in Zambia, GADC in Albania and RVO in the Netherlands. We’ve also partnered with ZimTrade in Zimbabwe, UIA in Uganda, SheFound in Tanzania, BPWA in Jordan, WBCG in Georgia and many more.
