Thimon de Jong
Leaders are making strategic decisions based on assumptions about human behaviour that are already out of date. Trust has shifted structurally – away from institutions, toward the personal and the peer-based. Generational expectations have changed, technology is being adopted in ways organisations did not anticipate, and mental health is now a leadership variable, not an HR one. Most organisations are still using frameworks built for a world that preceded all of this.
Thimon de Jong helps organisations translate shifting human behaviour and societal change into practical leadership decisions, drawing on his WHETSTON think tank research and his Routledge-published book Future Human Behaviour.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Thimon de Jong
- His Trust Pendulum framework gives leadership teams a structured account of why institutional trust has declined – and what leaders must do differently as a result
- His book Future Human Behaviour (Routledge) maps the behavioural shifts most likely to affect strategy over the next decade, making his frameworks referenceable long after the event
- As a lecturer in social psychology at Utrecht University, he brings academic grounding that makes his arguments credible to analytically rigorous leadership teams, not just receptive conference audiences
- His Polycrisis framing helps organisations move from crisis-by-crisis reaction to a coherent leadership posture designed to absorb the next disruption – whatever form it takes
- He holds together trust, generational change, technology adoption, and mental health as an integrated account of how human behaviour is shifting – not as a list of separate topics
Biography highlights
- Founder of WHETSTON / strategic foresight, an Amsterdam-based think tank established in 2014, specialising in future human behaviour and societal change
- Author of Future Human Behaviour: Understanding What People Are Going To Do Next, published by Routledge
- Lecturer in social psychology at Utrecht University, teaching master’s-level students how to apply academic research to business strategy
- Master’s degree in Cultural Studies with a minor in International Business Studies
- Former Insights & Strategy Director at TrendsActive; researcher at FreedomLab Future Studies; Editor-in-Chief of RELOAD Magazine
- Clients include Morgan Stanley, Vodafone, IKEA, Google, L’Oréal, BNP Paribas, and the European Central Bank
Biography
Human behaviour is changing faster than most organisations’ ability to read it. The gap between how people actually think, trust, and act – and how leaders assume they do – is the problem Thimon de Jong has spent fifteen years researching.
De Jong is the founder of WHETSTON / strategic foresight, an Amsterdam-based think tank focused on the implications of societal and behavioural change for leadership and business strategy. His Routledge book, Future Human Behaviour: Understanding What People Are Going To Do Next, maps the key shifts across trust, technology adoption, generational expectations, and mental health – and translates each into practical strategic implications. Routledge described it as an example of the future of publishing: part business book, part academic work, designed to be used, not shelved.
His academic grounding matters. De Jong lectures in the social psychology department at Utrecht University, teaching master’s students how research applies directly to business decisions. That dual footing – practitioner and academic – gives his frameworks a rigour that is uncommon in the foresight and futures space.
The organisations that work with him – Morgan Stanley, IKEA, BNP Paribas, the European Central Bank – are not looking for trend lists. They are looking for a coherent way to lead in a world where the assumptions that underpinned past decisions no longer hold. That is the territory his work occupies, and has done for over a decade.
Key speaking topics
- Behavioural foresight and societal change
- Trust dynamics and institutional decline
- Technology adoption and human response
- Generational change and multigenerational leadership
- Leadership under polycrisis conditions
- Mental health and leadership responsibility
- Future of work and evolving workplace expectations
- Strategic foresight for leadership teams
Ideal for
- Senior leadership teams preparing for medium-term strategy cycles or leadership offsites
- CHROs and people directors navigating generational change and shifting employee expectations
- Transformation leads and innovation functions applying foresight to organisational planning
- Board-level audiences seeking a research-grounded view of societal and behavioural risk
Audience outcomes
- A structured framework – the Trust Pendulum – for understanding how trust is shifting and what it demands of leaders today
- Clearer thinking about the behavioural and societal shifts most likely to affect their organisation in the next five years
- Practical perspective on how emerging technologies are adopted and resisted across different generations and groups
- Tools for distinguishing meaningful signal from noise in an era of overlapping, compounding disruption
- Greater confidence in leading through sustained uncertainty – without defaulting to reactive, short-term decision-making
Talks
Examines how multiple overlapping crises are reshaping human behaviour, decision-making, and leadership – and what a coherent leadership response looks like.
Key takeaways:
- How concurrent crises alter behaviour, risk appetite, and organisational trust
- The impact of sustained disruption on individual and collective decision-making
- Practical leadership postures for operating across compounding uncertainty
Explores the structural shift in trust away from institutions and towards personal and peer-based sources, and its direct implications for organisational leadership.
Key takeaways:
- Why institutional trust has declined and where trust is now being placed instead
- How a post-truth environment changes the rules of credible leadership communication
- Leadership behaviours that build and sustain trust in low-trust conditions
Addresses the gap between technology capability and human adoption – and how leaders can close it.
Key takeaways:
- How different groups respond emotionally and rationally to new technology
- Why adoption failure is a human problem, not a technical one
- Leadership approaches for guiding teams through digital and technological change
Sets out what leaders can practically do today to remain effective across technology, generational, wellbeing, and trust shifts simultaneously.
Key takeaways:
- How to navigate digitalisation, hybrid work, and evolving workforce expectations in parallel
- The leadership behaviours that sustain performance without sacrificing trust or wellbeing
- A practical framework for building long-term leadership resilience
Examines the practical implications of changing work models and what the next generation of talent expects from organisations.
Key takeaways:
- The evolving balance of flexible, hybrid, and in-person work – and the evidence behind each
- How generational expectations are reshaping retention, purpose, and management style
- Organisational responses that attract and hold future talent without undermining culture
Explores what distinguishes Generation Z from previous generations and how organisations can build genuinely effective multigenerational collaboration.
Key takeaways:
- The behavioural and attitudinal differences that define Gen Z in the workplace
- Why entrepreneurialism and an action mindset require a different management approach
- Practical models for cross-generational collaboration that release, rather than constrain, talent
Examines the growing centrality of mental health to leadership effectiveness and what future-ready leaders must do differently.
Key takeaways:
- Why mental health has become a frontline leadership responsibility
- The relationship between empathy, emotional intelligence, and team performance
- Practical steps leaders can take to build mental surplus – in themselves and their teams