M.J. van der Vijver

Mike van der Vijver (1957) is a freelance trainer and consultant with Itim in the Netherlands and practices on his own Itim licence outside the Netherlands, from Naples in Italy.

Trained as a biologist (majoring in Ecology), Mike never worked in this field. After graduating from Utrecht University, he travelled extensively through Europe, learned Italian and lived in this country for about two years, teaching English as a foreign language.  On his return to the Netherlands, he took out the Dutch State Certificate for Translator and Interpreter, gradually moving into the field of conference interpretation and joining the roughly 35 recognised Conference Interpreters practising in the Netherlands.

Ten years in this profession brought Mike a wide experience of working for international clients (mainly multinational companies and supranational organisations) and working in international teams, as well as managing them through the largest private agency for conference interpretation services in the world, located in Amsterdam. As a result, he realized that language differences were not the main cause for the difficulties in international relationships and communication. Starting to work in the field of intercultural management and communications was a small and logical step.

In addition to his work as a consultant and trainer on Intercultural Management, Mike is the co-founder of MindMeeting. MindMeeting is a company specialised in the design of programmes for effective international meetings, conferences, workshops and seminars, especially for international audiences, through the development of tailor-made, interactive and goal-oriented formats. MindMeeting’s programme designs play an increasingly important role in meetings that feature in corporate turnarounds.