When I started doing a PhD, I was frequently asked what my motives were. In particular, people who've known me a bit
longer were surprised that I was aiming at retrieving the highest academic degree one can attain in the Netherlands.
Especially since I was just an average student who completed HAVO (school of higher general secondary education; one
level beneath the pre-university education) with a bachelor of applied sciences afterwards. There was no academic
affinity apparent after my bachelor period. Well, all I can say is that I had other interests, such as sports, which consumed
much of my time until that point. But after the bachelor period, the attention I paid to establishing my career began to
grow. I wanted to challenge myself and get the most out of my educational period. As a result, I started my Masters
program in Organization Studies at the University of Tilburg, which went very well. During my university period, my
curiosity for the consultancy profession began to grow. So I chose to write my thesis about organization development
and the role of consultancy in particular. I was very interested in the factors that determine the success of consulting
projects. However, after my Master thesis, I felt like I had only just scratched the surface of this topic and was not finished
with doing (academic) research about it. Doing a PhD, to me, would mean the freedom to include more relevant aspects
into the study that I could not include in the Master thesis, due to time constraints. But I did not want to become an
academic, who is just doing a PhD about consultancy, without having been a consultant experiencing at first hand the
area of study. As I wanted to become a consultant after my master thesis, I found an employer, Novius, where I could
fulfill the consultancy profession and could attain a PhD based on research concerning the success factors of consulting
projects.