Rajiv Ball

Partner at THNK School of Creative Leadership

My experience and deep interests:

• Education (Adults)

• Entrepreneurship

• Leadership

• Strategy

I am based in: Amsterdam

My professional life has been shaped by the 13 years I spent at McKinsey & Company.  For most of that time, I worked in oil and gas and retail – I used to travel the world, turning around gas station networks before I found my passion for leadership development. During my last years at McKinsey, I was responsible for the leadership development of our 1,500 Partners globally. As you can imagine, it was a major pivot in my professional life to move from strategy consulting to leadership development (would love to tell you the full story over a coffee one day!), but I''ve not regretted at all.  Today I get tremendous high from working from my strengths and passions and building an institution – THNK – that will hopefully be a lasting legacy.  Within THNK, I’m responsible for the Quest pillar (part of our leadership curriculum), as well as our Custom Programs and new locations.

My upbringing is international – my parents are Indian, I grew up in a small town called Kitwe in Zambia, I went to school in the UK and have lived since that time in Ghana, Switzerland and now The Netherlands – and I treasure that a lot.  I thrive in international environments and understanding and building relationships with people from different backgrounds from my own.

Outside work, I live in The Hague with my German wife and two pre-teen daughters. I enjoy running and flying my home flight simulator (a Boeing 767-300 ER). I''m also a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley where I teach a number of leadership topics from design thinking to story telling to relationship-building.

I left university with BA in History from the University of Cambridge and an MSc and Ph.D. in Economic History/Development Economics from the London School of Economics.

My advisory board memberships:

• Amani Institute
• Saaf India
• Unexpect
• Amarlata Gramin Seva Foundation