The outdoors didn't run alongside my studies — it built the operator. Surf instructor, kitesurf board member, paraglider, three long trips. The work I do now sits on top of all of that.
The ocean is a better teacher of systems thinking than most courses. It rewards reading conditions, timing and committing — and punishes the same things consultants do.
From 18 to 25 I worked at Ozlines Surf — first as instructor, then manager. Surf lessons for every level and age. Summer camps and group activities up to 80 deelnemers at a time. Shop, hospitality, repair, rota, rescue, debriefs.
It taught me three things I use every consulting week:
I also did the external relations for SPIN Boardsports — the student kitesurf association — in 2022–23. Same energy: get the right people connected, find the value, make the season feel bigger than last year's.
kite. surf. paddle. boulder. paraglide. guitar.
3 months
Surf, learning by doing in a Bali workshop, slow paddles through mangroves, the kind of trip where you sleep where you land.
3 months
A continent where the rules of the road and the rules of attention are completely different. Came back quieter and faster.
4 months
Mexico to Patagonia and most of what's in between. Volcano boarding in Nicaragua, paragliding in the Andes, four months of moving and thinking at the same speed.
Castricum at dawn, the dune line in the back, the same west wind I know by smell. Bouldering when the sea is flat. Guitar when the head is too loud. I don't do these as "balance" against the work — they're the same operating system, just running outdoors.
if it has wind, water or rock — I'm in.
