Roel Wolfert
My life mission is to create and optimise value for society and all its stakeholders. I enjoy helping organizations, executives and above all people in general to make a ’turn around’ in their business (model) or life(style) and a mind shift in their thinking and acting. I love challenging the status quo 🙂
My story
Work wise I have over 28 years of international experience on the edge of business and technology in Financial Services, Consulting, Systems Integration, Software development & Venture Capital. This includes entrepreneurial, c-level, general management & transformational roles in marketing & sales, (strategy)consultancy, software development and program delivery in a range of companies from large technology service providers to marketing driven organizations & from start-up to blue chip companies. Nowadays I am an entrepreneur and operate as a “bedrijvendokter”, so redeveloping, re-purposing and growing existing businesses, with technology and people at the core, is my passion. I gained my theoretical knowledge at Maastricht University, Cambridge and Haas Business School. Over the years I have contributed to many articles and several books like “Cuba without prejudice”, In 2023 I co-authored “regio 4.0” and now I am working on “Ondernemen in het digitale tijdperk”. Beside work I am a passionate husband and father of two boys. My family means the world to me.
I was fortunate enough to have the rare opportunity of reporting to an executive who is a coach, a mentor and a true empowering leader.
During my role at Transtrack I always admired Roel for his Clarity, Decisiveness, Courage, Passion and the way he inspired and treated every person in his organization. Working with Roel, I recognized how all staff count on his resilience and tenacity as the major assurance to drive and bring the company to the next level!
Money & Blockchain
I’m passionate about Money for already 40+ years. It’s all about understanding how money works for me. It all started when I saw clients entering the store of my parents to buy something to be able to pay by card at one of the first pos terminals in NL, I think it was about 1985. Since then I have mostly worked in Finance/IT type of environments and have always been fascinated by the concept of Money and especially how people take it for granted. Blockchain and associated concepts like tokenisation and decentralised finance have my interest at the moment and I am working on Liqwith to develop better ways of funding initiatives and businesses. On a part-time basis I teach Blockchain/Fintech/Money at Porto Business School and CIOP.Academy. I also speak at events regularly, so feel free to invite me. Some of my podcasts on Staat’s Schuld, De Kluis, blckbx.tv,
Mushrooms
In 2019 I was contacted by a friend regarding psychedelics and a potential investment. I kindly declined but was intrigued by the potential of magic truffles and concepts like microdosing, mushrooms as superfood and the healing qualities certain mushrooms posses as well as the role the mushrooms play in balancing nature and for example recycling trash/plastics. Please check out initiatives I support in this space XtraPositive and Freshmushrooms. I highly recommend to view Fantastic Fungi on Netflix or read any further books from Paul Stamets if interested in this subject..
Let me start by saying that Roel is one of the most outstanding people that I know when it comes to innovation, new technology and applying these to create new business models in order to create value. Roel thrives on these subjects and is very capable of growing new business rapidly with an ambition that is seldom seen. Next to that Roel has a highly strategic and conceptual vision which he is able to apply in various industries and markets. Above all, Roel is inspiring and fun to work with and is respectful towards every individual.
Boxing
I started boxing when I was 15 years old, and it was a great experience to train like that, be exhausted and more confident as a person by better understanding the potential and limitations of myself. When I started university I replaced boxing for rugby, you can read more about that in the next session. Boxing returned in my life late 30’s again when I think I entered my mid-life crisis…anyway it doesn’t matter what it was as I felt not in the right place and decided to act upon that by quitting smoking, less travel for work, better food and more sports. I went to the local boxing gym and found some great people from all different ages and backgrounds and had a great time again whilst increasing my mental and physical well being. To give back I helped develop ‘boxingskills’ so recreative boxers have a method of improving and measuring there skills independently going forward. I managed to achieve level 6 a while back. If you’re ever interested in starting the sport, don’t be afraid just find a good gym with a certified trainer like Boksschool Teus de kruyf which is focused in boxing only. O yes, please start following Tony Jeffries, he makes some awesome content on youtube for self learning.
Roel is one of those rare individuals who has natural way of leading people with a strong focus on giving support if required. He has accepted a difficult role of changing the business model of our division predeceasing a bigger company’s change. The change was successfully delivered thanks to a great determination and passion disclosed by Roel during that process. Roel’s great advantages are accountability, full P&L responsibility and real ‘you can do’ mindset. Moreover, Roel is a professional coach knowing how to work on and develop strong sides of individuals working with him.
Rugby
I got introduced to the beautiful sport of rugby in 1992, when I studied at Maastricht University and one of my fellow students invited my for a training. Since day 1, I am hooked to the sport! Love and live(d) it! The sport has given me friends for life and some great experiences and personal learnings. The main reason I love it so much is because of the team spirit and fairness of the sport. Fairness comes on a personal level in this sport as well as after the match between teams. There is always respect, singing whilst having a few beers and crazy fun after a match! Fairness also comes as the best team almost always wins given the physical and team aspects of the sport its impossible to play defensive and aim to play a 0-0 game like for example in soccer. In my active period as a player I have played probably over 200 games (pure estimation) and had a draw only once as far as I can remember. We generally won the 3rd half so I am not sure how many games we have actually won ;-), for sure we promoted once with my team which was an amazing year and awesome celebration. Nowadays MMRC is a flourishing rugbyclub with solid teams for men, women and children. Happy to have been part of that journey as a player as well as a volunteer in the board of the students team and later as well for MMRC. Many of the people I played with in those days I am still very close with on a personal level. So truly a lifetime of friendships! O yes, besides playing I am also a fan, regularly visiting games in Paris, Cardiff, Dublin, Rome and more! As the Dutch national team is not in the “A league” internationally, I have become a big fan of Wales and South Africa. However I will always want the best team to win!