Futures of Governance

Futures & Sustainability exists to explore what's developing at the edges of sustainability in our economy and our society, the shifts that haven't made it into the mainstream conversation yet, but will.

Join us this time to explore: What if the way we run our organizations is the key to a different future?

Governance doesn't have the best reputation, it sounds like a word for meetings, not ideas. But how you run your organization says a lot about what you're trying to achieve. Do we have the right models today, or is there something else?

This event looks at how organizations make decisions, structure ownership, and set direction, and whether those structures still make sense for the world we're in. We'll explore what it means for nature to have a voice in decision-making, and how organizations become more resilient.

Expect an evening of exchange, not just a night of talks. You'll engage directly with speakers and each other, and leave connected with people thinking about the same questions.

This event brings together people rethinking governance from different angles:

•⁠ ⁠Alexandra Pimor (Earth Law Center, Paris) is a voice for nature, quite literally. As Director of Nature Governance at Earth Law Center, she serves as the proxy representing Nature on the board of UK-based Faith in Nature, the first company to grant Nature a board-level vote.

•⁠ ⁠Anne-Wil Dijkstra (Tony's Chocolonely, Amsterdam) is one of three Mission Guardians at Tony's, a role created in 2023 to protect the company's mission through a legal structure called Tony's Mission Lock, which holds a golden share giving the guardians power to block changes to the company's core mission and sourcing principles.

•⁠ ⁠Suzanne van Straaten (Sprinklr, Amsterdam) will talk through what it actually took to make her plant company steward owned. In 2023, she and her co-founder gave away their shares to a foundation, tying the company's profit and mission together for good. She'll explore what steward ownership really changes, from how decisions get made to what growth is even for.

•⁠ ⁠Erik Korsvik Østergaard (Good Morning April, Copenhagen), futurist and author of Anticipatory Leadership, joins as an active collaborator on this session. He co-founded Good Morning April, a consultancy helping leaders design organizations for the future of work, and will explore what capabilities organizations need to anticipate rather than react.

And Gilberto Morishaw joins us too, bringing music to the evening.

Together, we'll open up what new organizational structures could look like, and what capabilities leadership needs to build them. Check out our previous Tolhuistuin events and join us for this interactive session.

Doors open at 6.15 pm.

The evening runs from 6.30pm to 9.45pm, followed by drinks in the Zonzij.

Futures & Sustainability is a platform based in Amsterdam, working at the intersection of sustainability, futures thinking, and governance. Through public events and workshops, it brings together a community of people from business, foresight, policy and design to think beyond compliance and reporting toward long-term, anticipatory leadership. Futures & Governance is the fourth event in the series, following three sold-out editions at Tolhuistuin.