Book nomination!

We are very pleased to announce that the book of Alette has been nominated for the BCA African Business Book of the Year Award 2026. It is a great honor to be included on this shortlist of eight distinguished books, and we look forward to attending the award ceremony in London.

The book explores the challenges of intercultural management in Sub-Saharan Africa. Alette co-authored it with Vasco Freitas Silva, a Portuguese businessman who started a business in Angola. Together with his team, they discovered innovative management solutions and successfully integrated traditional Angolan leadership and organizational practices into their firm.

More information about the book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-45403-5 

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Saskia Maarse

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Saskia Maarse is a Dutch intercultural speaker, trainer and author. For six years, she researched how Dutch culture is experienced by people from other cultures. She did so through in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and managers from 30 different countries. She wrote two books on the subject: Tutti frutti – Success in a colourful and entreprising Netherlands and Onder de zeespiegel – collaborating and living together with the Dutch.

Saskia’s fascination for cultural differences started at a young age. She worked in tourism for over ten years, including several years in France, Spain, Italy and Austria. Her work experience abroad and her subsequent trip around the world broadened her view of the world and its inhabitants. Her research provided Saskia with much: more cultural awareness and extensive knowledge about Dutch culture in relation to other cultures.

Saskia’s mission is to provide as many people and organisations as possible with cultural insights and awareness in an accessible and inspiring way, so that more understanding of different cultures is created.

“During our team building day in Openluchtmuseum Arnhem we have had the pleasure to enjoy a very interesting cultural awareness workshop focussing on the Dutch culture in comparison with other cultures, how other cultures see us Dutch and what we can learn with the 6 principles of intercultural working from Saskia Maarse. The diverse group that we were with 25 people, 6 nationalities and even more cultures (including Frisian and Limburg) were really enthusiastic and even more understood the importance of good communication (verbal and visual) in international business.”
Marko van der Smitte, Sales Director Alfa Laval