Florent Geerts on Global Careers: What Really Makes You Stand Out

05.06.2026

Why Ownership And International Experience Matter More Than Job Titles

Wittenborg’s Amsterdam study location hosted a Global People Lunch featuring guest speaker Florent Geerts at the Dali Building. What followed was a frank, reflective conversation on global careers, international experience and the often misunderstood signals that shape hiring decisions.

Geerts spoke from experience spanning multiple regions and countries, shaped by years working across international environments and leading teams at Delft Imaging, which operates across more than 90 countries. He has also been recognised in TIME100 Health 2026, a context that adds weight to his perspective on global health systems and leadership.

Rather than focusing on job titles or organisational milestones, he repeatedly returned to how people actually grow when exposed to pressure, uncertainty and cultural difference.

“You are not competing locally anymore”

One of the strongest themes of the session was a shift in how students should understand competition.

“You start to realise you are not just competing locally anymore but globally, and that changes everything,” Geerts said.

For him, this shift was not abstract but personal, reshaping how he measures progress and ambition.

“I started competing against myself instead of others,” he added. “That is when things really started to change for me.”

CVs as signals, not stories

Geerts was direct about how he views CVs in recruitment, challenging the idea that they function as complete narratives of achievement.

“I do not really care whether someone has a bachelor’s or a master’s anymore,” he said. “That is the baseline.”

Instead, he argued, CVs act as signals rather than summaries.

“A CV is not a story of everything you have done,” he said. “It is a signal of how you think and how you work.”

What matters most, he suggested, is ownership.

“You need to behave like you are running your own mini company within the team,” he said. “That sense of ownership is what really makes the difference.”

What actually makes candidates stand out

Geerts encouraged students to think more broadly about what counts as experience and differentiation.

“What stands out is not just what you studied but what you did with your time,” he said. “Side projects, things you built yourself, things you tried, that is what gets attention.”

Even informal experiences, he suggested, can be meaningful if they demonstrate persistence and drive.

“It is not about the hobby itself,” he added. “It is what it says about how you operate.”

In a crowded international job market, initiative often matters more than polish.

Internationalisation as a lived skill

As Wittenborg is an international business school, Geerts also reflected on internationalisation as something learned through experience rather than theory.

“You can speak English perfectly and still not understand how people actually work together in different cultures,” he said. “That is something you only learn by doing.”

He encouraged students to seek international exposure early in their careers, whether through study, internships or work placements abroad.

“Once you have worked in different countries, you stop seeing international as something special,” he said. “It just becomes normal.”

Growth, pressure and uncertainty

Geerts also spoke about the realities of fast-scaling environments, where roles and expectations evolve constantly.

“When a company grows fast, everything changes at the same time,” he said. “Your role changes, your team changes and sometimes the entire structure changes.”

This instability, he suggested, is precisely why resilience matters.

“If you cannot handle pressure, you will struggle in any fast-moving environment,” he said. “It is not just about talent. It is about how you deal with stress and uncertainty.”

Honest decisions about priorities

Towards the end of the session, Geerts encouraged students to reflect honestly on their personal priorities rather than chasing external expectations.

“You need to be honest with yourself about what you want,” he said. “Career success, lifestyle, family, travel. You cannot optimise everything at the same time.”

He stressed that clarity of direction is more valuable than comparison with others.

“If you do not know what you are aiming for, you will always feel like you are falling behind,” he added.