Speaker

Vanessa Rouw is Lead Consultant at Oranjer, where she specializes in governance, PMO leadership, and large-scale business transformation programmes. She brings 20 years of experience in the PMO field, much of it built around complex, multi-country S/4HANA transformations, and currently leads the PMO for a multi-country S/4HANA Finance programme, partnering closely with the programme director on business and IT alignment. Earlier in her career, she set up and ran the global PMO for SHV Energy's multi-year S/4HANA transformation across the UK and France. She holds MSP, MoP, and P3O Foundation certifications, along with a Certified Scrum Master credential. As an advocate of Value-Based Project Management, developed by Professor Nicoline Mulder, she applies its principles to help project teams combine effective governance with shared ownership and open dialogue.

 

WOW, I Feel Gut! How to navigate complexity with courage When more governance, more reporting, and tighter control only slow a complex project down, Vanessa Rouw and Lieke Geers show what effective leadership looks like instead, in their workshop, "WOW, I Feel Gut! How to Navigate Complexity with Courage". This candid, highly interactive workshop explores what it takes to lead with courage when certainty runs out, at every level (personal, team, and organizational), offering fresh perspectives and actionable insights to navigate complexity without losing ownership, trust, or momentum. Vanessa and Lieke introduce Value-Based Project Management (VBPM), developed by Professor Nicoline Mulder, an evidence-based approach to leading from values rather than fear, bureaucracy, or the illusion of control. Through an interactive experiment called The Art of Miscommunication, small-group work, and guided reflection, participants apply two practical VBPM interventions to a realistic transformation scenario drawn from Oranjer's own PMO and programme governance work. The session closes with participants naming one concrete leadership behaviour they will start applying in their own projects.

 

Learning goals summary:

• Recognize that it's not just about tighter control and more governance; it's about the courage to lead when certainty runs out.
• Treat uncertainty not as a reason to add more process but as the moment courageous, values-led leadership matters most.
• Learn the core principles of Value-Based Project Management (VBPM) and how leading from values, not fear or bureaucracy, changes decision-making under pressure.
• Apply two practical VBPM interventions directly to a realistic transformation scenario, strengthening ownership, collaboration, and decision-making.