Michael Kolk

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Managing Partner

Global Practice Leader, Technology & Innovation Management

Michaël helps clients in the chemicals, life sciences and technology-intensive industries to identify, realize and sustain innovation-based growth and value creation.

Areas of Focus

Technology & innovation management

Education

Radboud University

PhD Physical Chemistry

University of Amsterdam

M.Sc. Biochemistry

Past Experience

Shell

Workgroup Leader

Michaël is a Partner who joined Arthur D. Little in 2000 and has been based in the Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur offices. He leads our Global Technology & Innovation Management Practice and coordinates as well our Global Chemicals Practice.

His consulting focus finds itself in the areas of Growth and Innovation performance enhancement, primarily in the chemicals, life sciences, and other technology-intensive industries. He is a regular speaker at innovation conferences.

Michaël’s mission in his professional life is to help clients find and capture opportunities for sustainable growth and value creation. Very often this involves the “what” (strategy creation, opportunity scouting, business-case creation, etc.) alongside the “how” (innovation management, organization and process redesign, capability building, change management, etc.).

Before joining Arthur D. Little, Michaël worked for Shell Chemicals as a workgroup leader in its Amsterdam Technology Center, providing technical support to internal customers in downstream oil and chemicals.

Michaël holds an MSc in biochemistry from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Radboud University. In addition, he has attended the Executive Education program of Insead, France.

Michaël is married and has three young daughters. His other interests are literature, world politics, and popular science. In his spare time, he likes to run (regularly) and travel to the world’s more distant places (occasionally).

Automotive

Opening the urban mine

Creating circular supply chains is essential to the green transition, particularly when it comes to recycling and reusing rare materials. Yet, while many circular economy initiatives may be sustainable, they are not profitable, which hampers their wider development and holds back the achievement of sustainability goals.

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The people-centric lab of the future

As the world grapples with global mega-challenges, innovation[1] has never been more necessary. We need breakthrough innovation to solve pressing issues around energy, the environment, and social and health challenges. At the same time, and equally importantly, companies have to deal with a business world typified by increased complexity and accelerated time frames. Together these mean innovation must deliver more breakthroughs, rather than only incremental improvements, with more flexibility and responsiveness and at greater speed.

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Big data? Big security!

The revolution introduced by the digitization process has made it possible to generate and collect increasingly expanding volumes of data. As a result, public and private organizations must define new strategies, design and implement protection systems, adapt their operational models, and learn to manage information by mitigating the risks linked to cyber threats — while remaining in compliance with the provisions of the main regulations in force. In this Viewpoint, we describe the measures organizations must take to mitigate risks.

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Staying ahead of the curve

The future is no longer predictable. Businesses constantly face the challenge to interpret and plan for the impact of overarching trends, such as sustainability/climate change, geopolitical instability, resource scarcity, digitalization, and disruptive new technologies. Today’s CEOs must master resilience and growth in a world of uncertainty to ensure that they stay ahead of the curve. In this Viewpoint, we describe a systematic five-pillar approach to address this complexity.

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HARNESSING EXTERNAL DATA SHARING TO UNLOCK TRANSFORMATIVE COLLABORATION

Data is at the heart of business success, enabling better decision-making, new business models, and underpinning effective artificial intelligence (AI). Sharing data across ecosystems creates more valuable data sets and delivers strategic benefits. However, external data sharing is still new to many organizations, leading to concerns about protecting data, loss of related intellectual property (IP), and ensuring regulatory compliance. Organizations can overcome these through a combination of regulatory/legal understanding and the right strategic/technology decisions.

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Eyes in the sky: Opportunities from earth observation

Earth observation (EO) — combined with developments in cloud infrastructure, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) — enables data-driven decision-making to address societal challenges like city development planning, land management, and climate issues. Higher data resolution fostered by technology enhancement, increased access to free low-/medium-resolution images, easily accessible computing power, and accelerating data-driven organizational transformation have enabled steady growth in EO market.

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