Heleen Cocu-Wassink

Heleen Cocu-Wassink is Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Alliander, one of the  Netherlands’ largest energy network companies. As a member of the executive leadership team,  she is responsible for shaping the people, leadership, and organizational agenda needed to  support the company’s mission of enabling the energy transition.  

A graduate of Business Administration at the University of Groningen, Heleen has built her career  around helping organizations navigate complexity and change. Throughout her career, she has  focused on strengthening leadership, culture, and organizational effectiveness in times of  transformation. At Alliander, this means preparing a workforce of more than ten thousand employees for a future shaped by sustainability, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and  unprecedented growth in energy demand. 

For Heleen, the ability to navigate uncertainty is one of the defining leadership challenges of our  time. Organizations today operate in an environment shaped by technological breakthroughs,  geopolitical developments, economic volatility, changing regulations, and growing societal  expectations. While these forces cannot always be controlled, leaders can influence how their  organizations respond. Heleen believes that resilience is not about predicting the future, but  about creating organizations that are able to adapt, learn, and change course when necessary. 

Known for her pragmatic and people-centered leadership style, Heleen combines a strong focus  on performance with a deep belief in the potential of people and teams. She brings together  insights from human behavior, leadership, and organizational dynamics to help organizations  translate ambition into sustainable results. Her work centers on helping organizations turn  uncertainty into opportunity by building future-ready leadership, developing critical capabilities,  and creating cultures where people can learn, perform and adapt as circumstances change. 

A frequent speaker on leadership, organizational transformation, talent, and the future of work,  Heleen enjoys bringing together insights from business, psychology, and change management to  explore how leaders can turn the tide by directing uncertainty into opportunity and creating  lasting impact in a rapidly changing world.