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Hans Lagerweij

Hans Lagerweij

CEO and growth architect specializing in travel, hospitality, and expedition leadership; founder of Flying Dutchman Consultancy and author of The Why Whisperer.

Jun 3, 2026

4:16
Can you tell us about your North Pole moment? What did it teach you about leadership when everything gets tough?
4:23
We charted Russian nuclear icebreakers to go to the North Pole, which was probably one of the most spectacular trips.
4:29
But for me, the most important trip that I made was actually my first trip to Antarctica.
4:35
That's the other [laughs] side of the world.
4:36
And I was just managing that company, Quark, and I was a very young CEO and thought like, "Okay," I was still puzzling, how do you give direction? How do you manage? How do you show leadership? And especially in this case, where you have an office in Toronto, Canada and a ship a long, long way from that office in Antarctica, how do you manage the guest experience, but also safety management on board of a ship so far away? I went on this, uh, trip.
5:05
Unfortunately, we met a storm, and not just a regular storm, but a storm with, um, that had hurricane-type of winds.
5:13
So interesting.

14 MINS LATER

19:43
What advice would you give to leaders trying to align their teams during periods of uncertainty or change?

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