Eric Coorens

Eric Coorens is a senior researcher in the transition of organizations to sustainable business processes and marketing. He is also a program manager for collaboration with the professional field and for the development of a master’s program on wellbeing economy and new entrepreneurship.

Career

Eric has more than 35 years of experience in international (listed) companies, NGOs, trade organizations and management consulting, including more than 15 years as CEO and director. He is currently still partly active as a supervisor and advisor. Eric mainly conducts participatory action research from a business, marketing and engineering background. His primary focus is on responsible leadership, circular business models and value systems, innovation-driven regenerative business processes and marketing.

Expertise

A mix of operational, managerial and strategic experience, knowledge and networks enables Eric to understand and act within complex (international) organizations, value chains and ecosystems. New and improved ways of collaboration and co-makership with a wide range of stakeholders are a specialty that Eric uses, particularly in the field of sustainability and regenerative entrepreneurship. Eric currently focuses mainly on leadership and entrepreneurship for an implicit balance between economic, social, ecological and governance aspects. The context of this is mainly focused on inclusivity of all stakeholders, circularity, regenerative processes and the optimal value chain for this (local, regional, intercontinental).

Research

Eric’s background and expertise are reflected in his doctoral research ‘A practice-based approach for businesses and their CEOs to become regenerative’, mainly as project manager of the joint research program ‘Doing business as if The World is Our Village’ of the International Business professorships (vml) and New Marketing. The aim of the program is to increase sustainable business behavior by making companies and individuals aware of their direct and indirect impact on the communities, ecosystems and value chains they are part of. The research is action-oriented and aims to collaborate closely with students, academies, companies and institutions to obtain direct feedback from the field. This is done by proactively prototyping and evaluating tooling and best practices based on the research. This continuous implementation and evaluation in co-makership is aimed at education, business and applied research. Working towards a better world together with all parties involved is why Eric gets out of bed in the morning.