Being active in the field of CSR, Social & Green Entrepreneurship and Future Leadership since 1998 we have always been a frontrunner in the evolution, constantly challenging and developing ourselves in (setting) the latest trends. We see challenges as opportunities and always had the overarching belief in fighting poverty with profit as the key for independent and sustainable growth. As pioneers we are constantly challenging the status quo and thinking differently. Yes we are those crazy people who believe we can change the world for the better. Constantly exploring new waves to drive CSR to social partnerships, to social venture capital, to social entrepreneurship to future proof leadership, to impact optimization, to sustainable growth.

In 2005 we set up the first social venture house as the first incubator and co-working for social entrepreneurs, later we initiated the first private Impact Investment Fund in NL and we claimed the first “life changing” learning journeys in order to inspire and develop organizations on challenging assignments for NGOs. Currently we are in the front rows to drive impact management & measurement, meaningful business, social branding, employee engagement by talent & leadership development and still advocating for Trade instead of AID. With our office in Colombia we took the lead in empowering green entrepreneurship & cleantech ideation, acceleration and innovation to fix climate change one start up at a time. An initiative we are planning to roll out in Latin America and the Caribbean in the years to come.

As mentioned CSR, Sustainability, Social & Green Venture Creation & Innovation and Leadership Development is far from a one-size-fits-all and that is always challenging us to come up with innovative solutions and approaches. Allow us to share our story by highlighting some of our projects and clients. For more details on much more experience, projects, clients and partnerships of our social ventures in our group we refer to their websites: Rainbow Collection (Impact Agency, Amsterdam), Start-U-up (Cleantech Acceleration, Amsterdam) Behold SA (Social Venturing, Johannesburg), The Experience Factory (Talent & Leadership Development, Johannesburg), Embedding Impact  (Impact Management, Cape Town) and ClimateLaunchpad Colombia & South Africa (green entrepreneurship, Bogota & Johannesburg).

It is our mission to empower green & social entrepreneurship beyond borders for sustainable growth. With the Behold Social & Green Venture Group we offer an international umbrella organization in which social and green entrepreneurs get the opportunity to unleash their potential by setting up and managing their own ventures for sustainable growth.

With our international offices, experience, resources, team and network we create an enabling environment optimizing their success rate and pace. Over the years we developed many innovative and cutting edge projects, programs, concepts and ventures, some successful some not.

But above all, it has been an inspiring journey and we learned that change is the only constant factor, entrepreneurship can only be learned by doing, to innovate you have to fail big and the best way to predict a better future is to create it. We proudly present the current social and green ventures and our regional offices in Europe, South Africa and South America that we co-founded and/or participate in. For more info we refer to their websites. 

October 2016 Reinoud Willemsen was in the local expert commission to describe the local Social Entrepreneurial Landscape in South Africa by the CSI edition of the Sunday times in South Africa

15^th of January 2015 Jop Blom hosting an exclusive Meaningful Business Breakfast in Amsterdam

2017 interview Reinoud Willemsen on Impact Measurement in the CSI edition of the Sowetan in South Africa

3^rd of November 2012 interview Jop Blom on social entrepreneurship in the economic section of the national news paper Het Parool (in Dutch)

ClimateLaunchpad National Final Colombia, 3 October 2019, in Bogota

ClimateLaunchpad The Global Grand Final, 13-14 Nov. 2019, in Amsterdam

During 2018 and 2019 we supported the Nepal Herbs sector and stakeholders to develop their sector brand and European Marketing Strategy. 

In 2017 we organized a launching event for Rainbow Collection inviting the CSR networks in Colombia and assessing the state of CSR and way forward for a sustainable future of Colombia. .

2014 Shake the World ambassadors Goldfish featuring on Live on stage to promote our fair fashion initiative

2015 Shake the world partner Africa Ignite nominated by One World as African MDG partnership

2015 War Child Kili-Challenge a charity sport event to raise funds for War Child

2009 TAP- an initiative of AIESEC Alumni to come with business wise solutions and partnerships towards the Millennium Development Goals

Jop Blom – Serial Social Entrepreneurs & Founding Partner Behold International

Serial social entrepreneur Jop Blom has over 20 years of international experience in empowering CSR, social / green entrepreneurship & innovation beyond borders for sustainable growth. As a passionate catalyzer Jop dedicates his unlimited resources of energy, experience, drive and networks to engage with your teams to think out of the box and kick start revolutionary new social innovation projects that will drive the sustainable growth, long term value creation and leadership of your organisation and the world around you. Jop started his career in the beginning of this century for Business Creation, a European consultancy firm specialised in finding alternative solutions in complex divestment operations for multinational clients. Often supporting management buyouts, turning older large industrial sites into new multi-user technology business parks or turning redundant industries into upcoming recycling activities and creating green jobs.

This was followed by a career as a forefront social entrepreneur in which Jop amongst others supported the set-up of one of the first Dutch impact investment funds, the first co-working social venture house as well as facilitating many corporate – NGO partnerships in which both parties joined forces to combat global challenges. As a true global citizen Jop has personally been involved in over 50 projects in over 25 countries supporting amazingly committed teams and bright individuals and leaders to boost social entrepreneurship & innovation  in corporates (Red Bull, Edcon, Anglo American, Ordina, BlowUP media), NGOs (UNV, Hivos, Red Cross, GiZ) and (semi) Governments (NL Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MVO Nederland, NL Enterprise Agency, Centre to Promote Exports, Chamber of Commerce Bogota, ProColombia) as well as many social enterprises, Impact Investment Funds and innovation & acceleration programs (Buxeros Capital / DGGF / Climate Launchpad / Rockstart Colombia /Impact booster / Business in Development).

His Beholding Social Venture Group consists of CSR and Impact Management & Acceleration consultancy activities and social ventures in Amsterdam, Bogota, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Jop often shares his unique social entrepreneurial experience and “impact acceleration model for purpose driven high performance organisations for sustainable growth and positive impact” as a keynote speaker and opinion leader on international events and conferences.

Jop holds a MSc. In Law and Economics of the University of Utrecht.

Reinoud Willemsen – Co-Founder & Managing Director Behold SA and Embedding Impact

Reinoud Willemsen is the co-founder and Managing Director for Behold SA and Embedding as well as the founding partner in The Experience Factory and ClimateLaunchpad in South Africa.  Reinoud is a very experienced executive manager with a demonstrated history of working in the consulting industry. Reinoud is a senior expert in impact management processes and strategies. He is a specialist in measurement of Social Impact (specifically Social Return on Investment), with a wide experience in Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Planning, Analytical Skills, Coaching and Strong Social Entrepreneurial mindset. 

Reinoud started his career in CSR back in 2002 with his final thesis on about understanding the best business model for building a CSR-based brand. After that he served many (predominantly South African) clients on CSR and Social Return on Investment Strategies such as Sasol South Africa & Mozambique, Alexander Forbes, Adopt A school Foundation,  Distell, Anglo American Platinum, Sibanye Stillwater, Growthpoint, the Impact HUB Johannesburg, Edgars, AfricaIgnite and WildLife College.

Passionate about providing platforms for development for the hidden talents out there Reinoud founded The Experience Factory a youth empowerment platform for talent & leadership development and job creation in South Africa.

Reinoud is the frontrunning leader in impact measurement and management and the Founder and Chairman of the SROI network in South Africa. In 2018 he joined with Forethought Africa to set up Embedding Impact the social impact measurement and management consultancy driven to enable social value creation at the intersection of business and society.

In 2019 Reinoud set up the first edition of ClimateLaunchpad in South Africa to boost green entrepreneurship & cleantech innovation for a sustainable future.

Reinoud holds a M.Sc. in Business Administration from RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Ron Bloemers – Cleantech Lead & Managing Partner Start-U-up

Ron Bloemers has over 25 years of full circle experience and network in the global renewables/cleantech industry, within the broader context of global energy markets, from the level of early stage cleantech startups to the top management level of large international corporations on a global playing field. Ron has proven examples of early stage cleantech startups that he coached/mentored to global success in a bilateral coaching/mentoring relationship.

Ron is the Founder and Managing Partner of Start-U-up, a boutique, private, MBA quality, cleantech business accelerator based in Amsterdam. He amongst others has designed and implemented the curriculum for advanced cleantech startups/scaleups in stage 3 of the EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator Program, by now Europe’s largest cleantech business accelerator, with 2,000+ startups incubated/accelerated throughout Europe and Euro 1 billion+ raised in external finance by these startups. Ron is also a driving force in the ClimateLaunchpad as of its foundation in 2014 turning into the world’s largest green business idea competition, running in 73 locations in 55 countries on 5 continents in 2019.

Ron frequently trains/mentors/advises (top) executives, startup coaches as well as startups all over Europe and beyond. Between the start year 2012 and 2015, cleantech startups in the Dutch Climate-KIC Accelerator Program alone closed €35 million in external finance, further growing to €100 million by January 2019. For 12 years, Ron served as a (renewable) energy & climate change expert at McKinsey & Company. His responsibilities included serving existing clients and developing new clients on a European and global scale, leading/training/coaching McKinsey client service teams on a European and global scale, and a worldwide responsibility for knowledge development in renewables under McKinsey’s Practice Leadership.

Ron holds a Msc. in Business Economics with specializations in corporate finance and environmental management, and a Bsc. in Physical Education.

Gideon Blaauw – Managing Director Behold & ClimateLaunchpad Colombia

Gideon is the Managing Director of Behold & ClimateLaunchpad in Colombia and responsible for our growth in Latam & the Caribbean. Gideon brings in over 15 years of experience in the financial industry and has been working on the design, structuring and management of social projects and innovative finance. Working on innovative finance Gideon aims to promote an integrated view on the different capitals we can apply in order to close the sustainable development gap on micro, meso and macro level that currently exists in our society.

In 2015 Gideon moved from the Caribbean to Colombia to partner in The BC.lab, or the laboratory for Blending Capitals. Working on various in-depth programs to introduce innovative finance in Colombia. Amongst others The BC.lab was involved in the launch of Impact 2030 a private initiative, supported by the UN, promoting the SDG 2030 Goals through corporate social responsibility and volunteering. In 2018 BC.lab were one of the advisors to the first Social Impact Bond launched in Colombia by the Fundación Corona. The focus of the bonds was to formalize youth employment in the city of Bogota ad later Cali. The BC.lab was also involved in the launch of the Concordia Innovative Finance Council to convene leaders from both Private and Public sector through action-oriented discussion platforms covering a wide variety of policy areas where the use of innovative finance instruments is the common denominator. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they have been working on Coomacovalle, a grassroots cooperative of 500 community mothers who are delivering Early Childhood Development services to over 10,000 children (and their families) in Aguablanca, one of the most vulnerable districts in the city of Cali. An approach and model to be scaled to other cities in the country. With One Earth Future Foundation and their Colombian program, PASO Colombia they have been working on building alternative rural schools for IDRs, ex-FARC members and local vulnerable communities, in an effort to build sustainable peace through governance. The BC.lab has been working on building awareness, attracting stakeholders and investigating alternatives to achieve long term program sustainability.

In 2019 Gideon Blaauw participated as a mentor in the first edition of ClimateLaunchpad in Colombia. In 2020 he launched the Cleantech HUB Cali as a way to aggregate the different actors in the city and the region around Climate Action. The CLP competition (as well as the Climathon) serve to mobilize grassroots initiatives and ideas as well activate local government and private sector around the topic of Climate. Gideon Blaauw is the National Lead for ClimateLaunchpad Colombia to boost green entrepreneurship & cleantech innovation in the region.

Gideon holds a Master of Law – LLM, Tax Law / Taxation at the Maastricht University.