“Are you catching my good side?” asks Advidi CEO Mark van den Elzen as our photographer angles Amsterdam’s legendary light into his eyes with a crumpled silver reflector.
Click!
The photo shoot is taking place in the executive room, where sleek driftwood desks and expensive whiskey co-exist peacefully with a battle-worn foosball table and family photos. It’s silent and serious, yet inexplicably alive; plants with personality and faults in the wood save it from slipping into monotony. People work here – but they live here, too.
Mark’s question is a trick. We’ve never seen his bad side. How could we know which is the good one?
I tell him that – a bit of over-the-top flattery, just for fun, even though I really mean it – and we can almost see the super-saiyan beams from his smile battling against the reflector’s borrowed sunlight. No Ruisdael clouds today.
Click! Click!
I make an inappropriate joke. Mark would never encourage such vulgarity. But he laughs anyway.
Click!
He seems almost nervous, but at the same time, it’s clear he isn’t at all. It’s almost like he’s wiggling in his seat for us; his subtle way of granting us permission to relax.
This is Advidi’s CEO. Calm… calculated… cool.
If you don’t look closely enough, you might miss it.
But beneath that constant grin (which you can find more frequently at the coffee machine or at the back of the lunch line than in a corner office) is a leader who sets high-energy expectations for himself and his team. Someone who draws inspiration from his people and slow thinking, not flashing objects or lofty whispers… someone who knows from pragmatic experience what Advidi’s capabilities are, and who has used his approach to lead the company through its third record-smashing year in a row.
We pause for one last Click! before huddling around the sound recorder.
“Are you ready?” I ask. My voice echoes and lingers in the now-empty room. He breaks the aural fog in trademark style:
“Let’s do it!”