A little bit about me

Bjorn Stenvers

Throughout my life and career path I have always been in pursuit of knowledge, growth through collaboration and positive change. People describe me as active, positive, results-driven. I have worked and travelled to more than 40 countries in the past 15 years actively involved in business, education, culture and more.
You can read my Short Bio below.

Short bio

Bjorn stenvers

Bjorn is CEO of the Eye Care Foundation. He combines this role with his many museum activities via the Manus Brinkman Fund (in honor of ICOM’s first Dutch Secretary General). Before he developed his museum activities as CEO at the ICOM Endowment Fund of the International Committee of Museums (ICOM/ UNESCO) Stenvers has been director of the Amsterdam Museums Foundation from 2013 up to 2017. He also set up several Museum Academies for museum staff trainings in Amsterdam, Rostov, Aruba, Altai, Ekaterinburg and the Russian Zoo Academy.
Bjorn Stenvers worked as director of marketing at the Amsterdam Public Libraries (2003-2007) and Amsterdam Heritage Museums (2008-2012). He was in the Cultural Leadership International program of the British Council 2010-2011. For 2012 and 2013, he coordinated the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Canal Ring together with Amsterdam Marketing. From 2013, he set up and worked on the development of the Amsterdam Museums (Foundation). He has several degrees in Marketing, Management, Art History and Communications.
Stenvers lectured in Rome at the prestigious Universita Roma Tre Post Doc program. Today he lectures in Amsterdam and in Moscow where he is the only foreign participant in the Presidential program for all Russian Ministers at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA/ MSSES).
Internationally he advices Ministries of Culture on working together for better returns.
He holds a number of board positions in Amsterdam: chair of the supervisory board of the People's University of Amsterdam, chair of the Diamond Museum Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Light Festival. Abroad he is in the board of ICOM MPR, the Russian Art Museum and the Sarian Museum (Yerevan).
He is Trustee of the World Heritage Site of Brest Fortress (Belarus) and Honorary Trustee of the Altai Museums (Republic of Altai). He is official Advisor of the Rostov Kremlin Museum, the Moscow Zoo, the Komi Republic and the Erasmus House (Jakarta).

My core competences

Let me try to distribute my experience as well as my active everyday professional life into 6 main categories with at least one particular data supported example to make it more visual. The core competences of Bjorn Stenvers:

Education

I have always enjoyed learning but also sharing knowledge. I have several Bachelors and Masters degrees and gave over:
- 1500+ lectures, training sessions and seminars given/organized;
- in front of over 35 000+ participants for the last 10+ years;

- to audiences in more than 20 countries.

Marketing

Generating ideas, turning them into viable projects or products, building marketing strategies and growing them until they reach their potential... and then growing them a little more.
One example: The marketing strategy created in collaboration with the Moscow zoo higher management in 2015 increased visitors from 1.9 to over 4 million last year and had high return on investment (ROI).

Culture

Actively working on cultural projects, especially in the area of collaboration between professionals and institutions to maximize results and growth. From 2013 to 2017 the Amsterdam museums worked in close collaboration with City Marketing (I Amsterdam), substantially improving their work processes, celebrating becoming Unesco world heritage of the canal district, and launching successfully several joint publications. *from 2013-2017 the Amsterdam Museums increased their joint visitor number from 9 to over 13 million

Business

For the last 20 years I have transferred my business experience for the benefit of the non-profit sector where my knowledge of the market and business processes can have visible impact. Currently I work as a Director at the Eye Care Foundation while working for the International Council of Museums, advising at UNESCO World Heritage and teaching at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and the Presidential program for Ministers of RANEPA in Russia.

Travels

To be a productive and successful citizen of the World one needs a wide perspective and some travel hours and miles. I have visited more than 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas in the past years. This allowed me to broaden my perspective and build a substantial international business network. The responsibility for the planet also makes me actively work on my ecological footprint.

Consulting

To have knowledge and experience is not enough to make the world, businesses and societies perform better or reach high results and goals. One needs to be able to share it, to engage, to make it understandable, to learn, to develop, to adapt it to a particular case or a need and to follow a created strategy. And when all of this is combined, great results can be achieved!

1500 lectures given
35000 participants
43 countries
25 years of experience

A story in years

Bjorn Stenvers

Let me highlight some years in my professional development that have marked important events worth mentioning here.

  • 1998

    A Marketing Manager with a Mission

    My first substantial marketing achievement was my active results-driven work in the marketing team of Shop.nl at Clockwork, a company that grew from 17 people in staff to 350 in 3.5 years.

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  • 2003

    Moving a Public Library

    As the Director of marketing and development at the Public Library of Amsterdam (OBA) I had the unique chance not only to bring it to new heights, but also successfully move it to a new, modern and concept-changing location.

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  • 2008

    Turning Amsterdam into a book capital

    Winning the UNESCO TITLE bid in 2008 for Amsterdam ‘AMSTERDAM WORLDS BOOK CAPITAL CITY’ for a year of literature celebrations.

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  • 2011

    The Journey of the Trainer

    The year when teaching turned serious. Combining teaching at the Amsterdam University of Arts and at Roma University, with lecturing in the President Program for Ministers at the RANEPA, Moscow, became a precedent in my development and professional path.

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  • 2012

    Increasing the UNESCO World Heritage

    A fascinating journey began with turning the renowned Amsterdam canals into a UNESCO World Heritage Site Canal Ring Amsterdam with many museum collaborations together with City Marketing (Amsterdam Marketing).

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  • 2013

    An impressive and massive collaboration

    As the Managing Director of the Foundation of Amsterdam Museums (SAM) and Director of Amsterdam Heritage, I had the chance to change the way the industry works and grows.

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  • 2017

    Museum globally

    Working for ICOM at Unesco (Paris) gave me the opportunity to contribute with a global marketing and fundraise strategy for this worldwide umbrella organization with representative offices in over 100 countries.

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  • 2018

    Turning business knowledge into change

    As a professional working internationally, I have the chance to put all that knowledge and experience into working for a world with less blindness via the Eye Care Foundation. It is a beautiful world and all of us deserve to see it!

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  • Today

    I have just started

    I will be happy to hear from you and see if we could collaborate and make the world a little more knowledgeable, collaborative, efficient, productive, successful and good.

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My quote of the month

"Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once."

Audrey Hepburn

Top achievements

Bjorn Stenvers

If I have to look back at the past 10 years, evaluate my experiences and interesting projects and chose only 4 to list in this section, may be this would be my selection:

Building a (Museum) Academy is a very responsible and full of potential project. It has the power to provide vital education to people working in culture, to ignite the generation of ideas, to create collaboration and build sustainability. The success of the first Museum Academy I established or helped to establish motivated me to continue until the number of Museum Academies today in more than 10 locations such as Amsterdam, Moscow, Altai, Aruba, Tbilisi, Ekaterinburg and more.

Progress
90%
Success rate
99%

We learn during our whole live and there is so much in this big wide world we do not know. Therefore I believe in believe in "education permanente" [Fr]. But the more knowledge and experience we acquire, the more we have the obligation to share it with others and help for the overall awareness, experience, collaboration, growth and change to improve. I started my serious studies in 1985 and since then I have not stopped learning. I started teaching and researching already in 2008 and also have not stopped ever since. I find great pleasure in acquiring and sharing knowledge.

Progress
85%
Success rate
99%

I had the unique opportunity to implement first time Marketing Strategy in a European Library to make it more market driven (more income, more impact, more efficiency). Main results: major income increase, more members (120k into 325k), more visitors (3mio into 4.5mio), new Corporate Identity, new market driven way of working, product development (theatre, TV and radio hosting from the library, merchandise, education programs, restaurants and cafes also in the branches) and more. The project was unique and is still very successful.

Progress
100%
Success rate
99%

As part of the project I implemented a first time Common Marketing Strategy, set up a foundation & new structure, initiated new marketing products and services (more income, more impact, more internal communications & efficiency). Main results: e.g. Amsterdam Museum Academy, Amsterdam Museum Monitor Publications, Merchandise line, professional marketing & communication (including structural partners) more members (19 to 48 museums), new Corporate Identity, international network for cultural business, market driven way of working together.

Progress
100%
Success rate
99%

Some publications

Arp, P., Stenvers, B., Praag, A. Eye Care 35 years (English). JEA: Amsterdam, 2019 ISBN: 9789083014029
Watelt, R., Stenvers, B. Museum visitors with Hearing Disabilities, Publishing House Pero, Moscow, 2018, ISBN 978-5-906988-71-3
Stenvers, B. Marketing from the Papagajnika: the three "P"'s on museum marketing for cities, Moscow, 2017, ISBN 978-5-7749-1249-0
Snoeker, L., Stenvers, B. Amsterdam Museum Monitor 2016. SAM: Amsterdam, 2016, ISBN 978-90-826597-0-2
Stenvers, B., Kobalchuk, I. The Amsterdam Museums Colouring Book, Bekking & Blitz/ SAM: Amersfoort, 2015, ISBN 978-906109-50-71
Stenvers, B. Museums in cities working together: more collaboration: better returns. ICOM Russia, Murmansk, 2015
Stenvers, B. The 17th century allegory of the trade city of Amsterdam. University of Amsterdam, 2014
Stenvers, B. What is the situation of the Libraries in Europe within 7 years (2021) via seven P’s, Bibliotheek 7-7: NBD Biblion, Zoetermeer, 2014
Stenvers, B. Forming a union of oil & gas museums by working together. ICOM Russia: Chanty-Mansiysk, 2014
And more...

Some of my partners, clients or supporters

The active work in several fields and different locations throughout the years has transformed a wide range of contacts into a valuable professional network. You ca see a sample of the logos of some of my partners, clients or supporters here.

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Get in touch

Bjorn Stenvers

You can use the form below to contact me regarding any topic of interest connected to my competences or areas in which I could be valuable in a mutual cooperation. You can also contact me via social media listed below. Looking forward to our communication. Thank you.