Hein J.M. Knaapen

Hein is the Managing Partner of CEO.works in Europe, bringing over 35 years of experience in delivering transformative talent solutions for multinational companies.

Before joining CEO.works as a partner, Hein held senior HR positions at Unilever before becoming the CHRO of KPN Telecom in 2005. He later served as CHRO at ING Bank from 2012 to 2019, where he developed and implemented the company-wide people strategy for over 53,000 employees while successfully reducing the HR budget by 20%.

At CEO.works, Hein plays a crucial role in addressing the sudden value destruction that has impacted large corporates, family-held businesses, and private equity firms—particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside his partners, he has observed that while these companies apply rigorous, risk-aware, and evidence-based approaches to investment decisions, they often lack the same discipline when it comes to talent decisions.

Hein works closely with CEOs, CFOs, and CHROs to bring investment-level rigor to people management interventions, accelerating value creation by:

• Identifying where the greatest value creation will occur within the company.
• Determining the key roles that drive this value creation.
• Defining the critical deliverables and risks of those roles with the same precision as investment decisions.
• Ensuring the right role-talent combinations to maximize value creation.

Through this structured approach, Hein helps organizations unlock their full potential by aligning talent decisions with business strategy.