Testimonials

Inspiration comes for many of us after being exposed to someone with passion. That is exactly what 1000 Randstad employees experienced in 2018 when meeting Jaco Ottink. Randstad is implementing a new brand promise ‘Human Forward’ in which the dedication and professionalism Jaco showed was a very welcome and natural part of the introduction of this program. In a very authentic and passionate way Jaco shared during 6 sessions his experiences as a mountaineer and his view on how to pursue your dreams. The audience became inspired by his accomplishments brought on a very natural way and the dedication and preparation behind it each expedition.
I would without any doubt recommend Jaco to any company to share his stories and I am convinced that he will leave the audience inspired and with a mission to find and or share their own dream.

Jeroen Tiel Regional Managing Director Poland and Eastern Europe for Randstad

Our goal was to create a Belvedere Collective from all the different brand managers and other key brand stakeholders around the globe during a 3 days Belvedere Immersion in Warsaw. The tactics Jaco used to bring the individuals together from the beginning were highly efficient and very engaging for all. Literally in a few hours the base for establishing the Collective was created. The inspiration of Jaco his personal dream has been superb which resulted in highly motivated participants during the team workshop activities. Jaco has a real talent to read the culture of the company and the atmosphere between the participants, which are absolutely key succeeding with the set goals related to the Belvedere Immersion. Besides leaving the group inspired and succeeded to establish the Belvedere Collective, Jaco has made 38 new friends, which showcase how good he is to connect with each individual. Still nowadays when I visit different countries, brand managers participated asks about him and tells how inspired they have been about his dream and capabilities to present and lead a group towards their goals. Obviously I highly recommend Jaco to each profit and non-profit organisation in order to inspire many more people and children. Na zdrowie Jaco!

Marc Goudemont International Business Development Director

As the committee responsible for the organisation of a career-oriented event for ambitious and talented young students affiliated with one of the oldest and largest student rowing associations in The Netherlands, we made it our mission to inspire and intellectually stimulate as many of our affiliated members as possible. In search for competent people to speech at our event, we stumbled upon Jaco and his unique and awe-inspiring story of courage, perseverance and the necessity of chasing your dreams. In a loaded hall filled with students he delivered one of the most exciting, breathtaking and inspiring stories of the entire event and left us all in awe and amazement, as he took us with him on his way to the summit of Mt. Everest. For once, we all felt like adventurers on an expedition and we thank Jaco for this experience. His impressive story will last inside the memories of those who were there with us that night for a long time to come.

Mats Vervoorn President of the Career Days Committee 2019 of the Utrecht Student Rowing Association "Triton"

We invited Jaco as motivational speaker for the kickoff of the new business year. Very inspiring to hear about his dream and his (long) way to fulfill it. During the 1 hour presentation the audience was highly engaged and afterwards he became the talk of the day. It inspired all of us to set up our own dreams and to start making them come true!

Monique Gottgens Hesselink Manager Customer Marketing AkzoNobel

Jaco was one of the highlights of our Development Week. During an inspiring presentation he showed and explained to us the preparation, dedication and perseverance to begin and complete the challenge of conquering the Mount Everest. Very impressive to see the pictures, hear the inside stories and details such as the increased heart rate at those altitudes or the lack of oxygen above 8000 m.
Jaco also emphasized risk exclusion, every small detail could have a big impact in the end, so excluding manageable risks is key during preparation of the expeditions.
His work experience at Unilever is also useful in bridging the gap between expeditions and day-to-day office work. How do I act in a team as a reliable team player, what should I do to avoid being the weakest link in the team, how do I maintain the right balance between my work and private life, all kind of situations where Jaco made the comparison between his expeditions and your daily work and private life. All in all, a very inspiring and motivating presentation that I can certainly recommend to others!
Thanks Jaco!

Marcel Bal Equity Trader Shell Asset Management Company B.V.

We invited Jaco as a guest speaker for one of our senior management team days. Jaco is a very good motivational speaker who uses great metaphors about his climbing highlights which are applicable to business. During our event we focused on (personal) leadership, his speech was spot on and inspiring. Highly recommended!

Erik Uljee CEO DPD Pakketservice

Dear Jaco, on behalf of the entire school I would like to say ‘thank you’! The students enjoyed your story and together with the teachers they started to define their own dreams after your session. They will work, support and challenge each other on these dreams during the coming school year. Not only the students, but also many teachers like myself, came back home energised after your “Dare to Dream” presentation. One colleague mentioned to me that she had never met a person who was able to communicate a story in such a powerful way. And I fully agree with her! We wish you all the best with your dream to inspire 1 million people, as well as with your next adventures to the North and South Pole.

Annemarie Tanis Teacher at Het Kompas, Stellendam Netherlands

Jaco Ottink is an exceptional Mentor. I have the privilege to have Jaco as my Mentor since 2013. Since then, Jaco and I have met together every three months to discuss my professional and personal journey and goals. Jaco has the ability to be truly empathic and provide powerful feedback and guidance to both my professional and personal journeys. As a result of Jaco’s mentoring, it has allowed me to establish much stronger and clearer personal values and professional goals in my life.

Daniel Sedgwick Account Executive II - National Retail Sales

At the end of October, we had the pleasure of having 5 guest lectures done by Jaco. With these quest lectures we wanted to make sure that all our first and second year students (1.500) had the opportunity to listen to his inspiring story of how he managed to fulfil his dream and the lessons he learned along the way. We wanted to incorporate these lectures in our coaching-program so that we could challenge students to think about their own dreams and how to accomplish them.

Due to his energetic and passionate way of speaking he easily managed to win the attention of the crowd and keep them interested, even long after the actual lectures. He did so, not only with his entertaining style, but also by making people reflect on their own dreams. Now, a few weeks later, I can still see the effect.

Now, I regularly meet students with whom I have deeper conversations about their own dreams and how they want to accomplish them. Even during normal book-keeping lessons. As a teacher and as a coach I couldn’t have asked for more. Thanks to Jaco’s passion and drive to motivate others, he helped to get my students motivated, to make them think about their future and what would be necessary to make them happy.

Iris van der Graaf Teacher and coach at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences

We invited Jaco to be the keynote speaker for the American School of Warsaw bi-annual high school Career Fair. Our student body, along with quite a few parents and other professionals, were entertained and motivated by Jaco’s recount of his Mt. Everest adventure and his approach and insights into making and striving for personal goals. His talk was relatable for all ages and provided a great start to our day. In addition to his opening presentation, Jaco conducted three “break out” sessions called, “Seven Steps to Your Dreams.” Throughout, students were engaged and appreciated Jaco’s approach to having them think creatively and practically, at the same time, about their future goals and dreams. The overall success of his talk and workshops prompted us to invite him back to speak with parents from our ASW community. Thank you, Jaco!

Tim Munnerlyn HS Counselor American School of Warsaw

Members and friends of the Netherlands – Polish Chamber of Commerce had the opportunity to listen to an incredibly inspiring presentation by Jaco Ottink during our monthly business drink meeting in Warsaw. What made this talk stand out was that Jaco was able to take the whole audience with him to the mountain and made them undergo the joy and fear that he experienced there himself. A push in the back for our audience to dare to dream! And as well as the riveting talk, the cooperation with Jaco himself in organising this presentation was also excellent. He is a very easy-going person and great to work with. Thank you Jaco for being with us at our business drink and sharing your dreams!

Elro van den Burg Managing Director Netherlands – Polish Chamber of Commerce

Here We Are Global network was delighted to host Jaco Ottink, an inspirational and motivational speaker, who spoke to our members in Warsaw. Jaco took us on his perilous journey to achieve his ambitious goal of climbing the seven summits (on each continent the highest mountain). It was an inspiration to us all to see how he handled the extreme mental and physical challenges that he endured along the way to climb to the top of the world. Jaco showed us that you can dare to dream (big!) and that we can all achieve our goals even if we encounter what seems like insurmountable obstacles along the way. Following his engaging speech, Jaco took us through the 7 steps of climbing our personal Everest, showing that the impossible can be made possible with some careful reflection, planning, goal setting and of course perseverance. Jaco, thank you for sharing your story and providing us with this wonderful opportunity! We are so glad that you were able to motivate so many of us to take the next step!

Here We Are Global Poland, Warsaw

A famous Dutch climber, a full-time daddy, founder of Beyond Summits and an active member of Polish-Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, Jaco, finally managed to join us as a special guest during our Teens Matter meeting. We offer educational hands-on support to high risk teens, including those from children’s homes and other disadvantaged social backgrounds, who will soon be entering the world and living on their own.

Jaco, came to us almost straight from the North Pole to share the story of his latest adventure. His presentation was absolutely amazing so no wonder that we were all impressed, especially by his enthusiasm and stamina. We’d like to thank him for an inspiring and vivid presentation, his motivational words will stay with us and teenagers for long!

Justyna Szachowicz Sempruch Chair of the Foundation

Jaco Ottink, motivational speaker, conqueror of Mount Everest and the remaining six highest peaks of each continent came to our high school. Based on previous experience, both from 20 years of work in the international corporation, personal life and successful expeditions demanding iron discipline, perseverance and courage in the realization of dreams, this courageous Dutchman has become an inspiring unit for change. An hour-long meeting with Jaco was not only a story of an extremely interesting man about the hardships and challenges of gripping eight-thousands or the North Pole, but also a personal story, a journey into himself and asking himself questions about goals, values ​​and the degree of determination that can be potentially each one of us. Maybe we will not be the best at what we do, but how much satisfaction is there going beyond the sphere of comfort and developing our own potential! Thanks again, the teachers and students were really impressed and take your story with them on their own journey.

Marta Piróg Riley Language Teacher at LXIII Lajos Kossuth High school in Warsaw, Poland

Jaco joined our extended Leadership session, organized to reflect on our Why and How in a context of an ongoing market transformation. He kindly shared with us his powerful story on how purpose and togetherness helped him to reach Mount Everest, the North Pole and other fascinating destinations.

His motivational speech reflected our company values of Joy, Care and Passion for Better and aimed to empower our team members to dream big and accomplish our goals, both individually and as a team. Jaco’s inspiring speech was a strong reminder that no obstacle should remain unchallenged and everyone can prove their passion and determination to accomplish even the most ambitious goals.

I appreciate Jaco’s proactive approach, openness and willingness to accommodate our specific needs in the process, which significantly contributed to the success of our event. I wish Jaco all the best for his next endeavors and together with UPC’s team we keep our fingers crossed for him to achieve his big dream to inspire 1 million people!

Robert Redeleanu Chief Executive Officer UPC Hungary and UPC Poland

I wanted to thank you for your contribution to the 2016 Sales & Marketing Conference of Tarkett Australia. Your presentation ‘Planning for Success’ on the basis of your Seven Summit experience, was perceived as very inspiring and helped us to get our message across in an excellent manner. On behalf of the Australian Management Team a BIG thank you for your contribution!

Ralph Jorissen Managing Director Tarkett Australia

Jaco is an excellent facilitator, a great coach and an inspirational speaker. He is able to apply his incredible experiencing preparing for and then mastering his Everest Summit with his strong understanding of how great business teams work to help visioning, goal setting and planning. I invited him to be a motivational speaker for an offsite planning day for my team and he went above and beyond the brief, helping me plan the full day to achieve my desired outcome. It was a great success as well as a really enjoyable day for everyone.

Emma Peacock Head of Sustainable Business & Communications, Unilever Australia & New Zealand

The Abbotsleigh Junior School girls were fascinated to hear of Jaco Ottink’s planning, preparation and fitness regime and extensive organisation needed prior to scaling the last of the Continent Summits – Mt Everest. They were further enthralled to hear of his courage, stamina, persistence and ability to push through obstacles. But perhaps what the girls will remember most of his fabulously visual presentation was that the scaling of such heights is only possible when you dare to dream and work as a team.

Sally Ruston Head of Abbotsleigh Junior School

Thanks so much for your passion, energy & inspiration at our CCD sessions last week. The team is still on a high from the 2 days and this is thanks to the way you expertly crafted the agenda to inspire us to the outcome that we achieved. I thought the flow was very effective and allowed for maximum energy right up to the conclusion of the 24 hours.

Nick Bangs CCD Director Unilever Australia & New Zealand

We would like to say ‘thank you’ for a brilliant presentation you gave to all our students between the age of six and twelve years old about your journey to the Summit of Mount Everest. The children were excited that they had the opportunity to share upfront with you their questions that came alive throughout your presentation on the day itself. All children and staff have a better understanding of what an expedition is about and what it means to stay 2 months on the mountains. All of us have been engaged by your story from the first until the last minute.
Many thanks

Iepie Wijshake Director public school Makkinga Netherlands

Jaco as a speaker was truly, truly inspirational. He has an amazing ability to connect with every member of the team with a style that \engages all levels of the organisation. His passion and energy is infectious, he is able to captivate his audience with content that is entertaining, engaging, motivational and thought provoking. He has a skill to make the team believe that anything can be achieved if you have a vision, passion, belief, you plan well, train hard, and stay on course no matter the challenges that come your way.  Jaco will inspire your team, making them feel empowered and that they personally can make a significant difference to the organisation. He leaves audiences with the absolute belief that success both professionally and personally is up to them and the teams they are a part of. His sincerity is captivating, his approach is believable, his achievement is inspiring and undeniable. Your team will thank you for the opportunity to hear Jaco! I absolutely recommend him as an inspirational corporate, sports and life in general speaker.

Kerry Miller Vice President Customer Development Unilever Australia & New Zealand