Leaders in sustainability (the podcast) S02 E02 — Ruben Brave (Entelligence)

4 min readJul 22, 2021

Ruben Brave is a Dutch internet pioneer, board member at impactful tech or media-related organizations such as Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC), Open State Foundation (OSF), the Dutch Review of Books Foundation and the Dutch Startup Association (dSa), but he also volunteers for many societal organizations.

He is the founder of Entelligence bv, an academic business incubator aimed at university scholars and researchers looking to turn their inventions into spin-offs.

Recently Ruben was asked by the Directorate of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate to independently advise on an extensive Exploration of how to increase diversity and inclusion in the Dutch Startup ecosystem, with the aim of improving Access To Entrepreneurship in the broadest sense of the word.

Beyond the ethical aspects of dedicating attention to such a cause by way of creating new pathways of opportunity for marginalised groups, what has been recognised from the start by all involved parties are the much broader societal benefits to increasing entrepreneurial participation.

More specifically, the lack of inclusion of people from marginalised and underrepresented backgrounds is negatively impacting the Dutch government’s ability to deliver SDG 5, 8 and 10, respectively, decent work, sustainable economic growth and reduced inequalities for the Netherlands as a whole.

When it comes to SDG 8 for example (sustainable economic growth), Ruben’s research revealed that the latest data from the CBS, showed that the proportion of migrants and their descendants is predicted to double in the Netherlands by 2060.

If this indicator is paired with the data from the European Union, demonstrating a steady downward trend of birth rates, a picture arises of a more diverse future population with a smaller proportion of new entrants to the workforce.

In order to achieve sustainable economic growth, it is therefore imperative that the business environment adapts to effectively prepare to include diverse players.

This should be addressed to avoid the risk of facing severe challenges with finding and keeping talent, as well as to avoid having blind spots when marketing and catering goods and services to the changing face of the future demographic.

This perspective and current collaboration with the Ministry aligns with Ruben’s pre-existing and ongoing effort to guide scholars in their personal transformation towards becoming entrepreneurs and enable societally relevant university spin-offs.

We asked him about the obstacles faced by entrepreneurs coming from various backgrounds.

For similar reasons to those previously outlined, he explained that diversity is (or must!) not be seen as pertaining solely to the black community, women or other people of colour, but also to people from disenfranchised economic and social backgrounds.

As an example, he pointed out that someone with a brilliant business idea will find it almost impossible to attract funding without “speaking the lingo”, which is to say without having the linguistic ‘know how’ of which preferred terminologies to use when filling application forms

To the point that D&I should not be seen as pertaining solely to people of colour or women he also points out that the term D&I often seems somewhat “colonized” by white women from privileged backgrounds, in order to serve their own agenda.

The idea that increased diversity and inclusion for all underrepresented groups improves overall company performance has become increasingly popular amongst renowned business journals and science-based media. e.g. correlation noted between diversity in leadership teams and their performance amongst 366 companies within the United Kingdom, Canada, Latin America, and the United States.

Results:

When it comes to gender:

Companies with the highest amount of gender diversity in leadership teams had 15% better financial performance than companies with the lowest amount of gender diversity in leadership teams.

When also factoring in ethnicity:

Companies with the highest amount of ethnic diversity in leadership teams had 35% better financial performance than companies with the lowest amount of ethnic diversity in leadership teams.

We finally asked him about how his work is perceived by the people he works for.

He explained that their attitude differs by generation.

Whereas the younger generation appreciates his work and even expresses disbelief that such work is still necessary in our supposedly enlightened times, the older generation is more critical about it.

Listen to his insights (click on the button below):