Expert on Intercultural Business

As a Dutch national and graduate of the Amsterdam & Heidelberg universities, Oscar van Weerdenburg started his career as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam.

During this time he published numerous articles on European culture, politics and history. Many of these articles appeared in 'De Volkskrant', a leading Dutch newspaper.

In 1992 he joined the full-time staff of the Centre for International Business Studies and thus began a close collaboration with Fons Trompenaars. He has acted as a trainer and consultant to a wide range of international companies who are aware that they are operating in a complex multicultural environment. They include AT&T, British Airways, Daimler Chrysler, Elf Aquitaine, Jones Lang, La Salle, Motorola, Nissan, Norsk Hydro, Royal Dutch Shell and Thomson.

In 1996 Oscar van Weerdenburg established his own company; Intercultural Business Improvement (IBI), specialising in cross-cultural training and consultancy. IBI's goal is to assist people at all levels in an organisation in developing an integrative, cross-cultural, perspective for their own work and that of their companies.

Oscar has assisted international companies in their merger processes, using a range of instruments for analysing and integrating their corporate and national cultural backgrounds. In a recent project, he and his colleagues designed and delivered training sessions that assist HR managers in developing a multicultural approach to In-house Learning and Development.

Furthermore, Oscar is involved in two research projects at IBI that focus on the development of new tools for assessing cross-cultural competence; the Intercultural Conflict Management Inventory, and the Cross Border Inventory.

Oscar van Weerdenburg is a very popular speaker who is able to present in English, German and Dutch.