SPEAKER PROFILE

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As a seasoned founder Ruud is presenting his 'State of Tech' key notes at numerous seminars and conferences all around the globe.

The State of Tech is a yearly forecast of the tech industry co-produced with PWC and the Innoleaps Group.

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As co-founder of the Innoleaps Group and 'Startupbootcamp' Ruud is a shareholder in over 600 startups.

Innoleaps is accelerating corporate enterprises' digital transformation. The third division of the group the Talent Institute trains Growth Hackers and Young Digital Innovators.

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These enterprises provide great data for speeches about innovation, media and entrepreneurship in general or for instance corporate startup engagement and the future of specific industries.

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Biography

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Ruud Hendriks (1959) started his career as a DJ on board legendary pirate station Radio Caroline.

At 20 he got his first opportunity as a TV-reporter and anchorman with public broadcaster Veronica. During 9-years Ruud anchored many Dutch TV news, current-affairs and sports programs. Amongst others he hosted the 1988 Olympic Games and several telethon’s for "Greenpeace".

He initiated the first non-stop News radio format in the Netherlands and several innovative TV formats.
Ruud co-founded Sky Radio and Radio 10. These were the first commercial radio stations using European legislation to beam into cable head ends in the Netherlands from beyond its borders.

In 1989 he co-founded tv-stations RTL4 and RTL5 and became their first program director and COO. Under his tenure RTL became the market leading TV broadcaster in the Netherlands.

In 1992 Ruud became President of NBC Europe and transformed Superchannel into NBC Superchannel and into CNBC Europe.

Back in the Netherlands he became an executive board member of tv-production company Endemol. When he left in 2001 market value had grown from 135 million Euros’ to 5.3 Billion.

At Endemol he was responsible for all online activities, international expansion and distribution. He played a key role in Endemol’s I.P.O, the start of failed sports channel Sport7, and the take over of the company by Telefonica from Spain in 2001.

Ruud had numerous non-executive board positions at a.o Radio 538, UBF, Rabobank and Theodor Gillissen Bankiers.

Currently he's a supervisory board member at Invest-NL, Advisory board member at BSUR and a columnist at Emerce

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