With over 20 years of experience in HR, leadership development, and getting organization ready for high growth, Mariska van IJzerloo is a visionary force in transforming HR teams into growth accelerators for nature tech companies. Specializing in both deep tech and mission-driven scale-ups, she has a particular passion for blue ocean innovative ventures that push the boundaries of what’s possible. Serving as the Director of People and Organization at The Ocean Cleanup, she is working alongside Boyan Slat and the leadership team to prepare the organization for scale and revolutionize HR practices. Her efforts have successfully modernized HR into a talent accelerator, fueling the growth of The Ocean Cleanup and accelerating their mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.
As a firm believer in the power of creating ‘talent density’, van IJzerloo has a proven track record of building people-centric organizations that drive positive global change. Her approach combines cutting-edge regenerative organization building with high-performance HR and people development strategies. Over the past decade, she has fulfilled Chief People Officer roles at high-growth scale-ups like Ampelmann and Ultimaker, guiding both companies to global expansions and a scale of around 400 employees. Her extensive experience also includes HR leadership and talent roles at major engineering and innovative companies such as Reebok, DENSO, and Arcadis.
A regular speaker on organizational scaling and talent focused organizations, Mariska van Ijzerloo works together with Venture Capital Funds to help them grow their portfolio companies on the people side. She also serves as a Non-executive Board member of a scale-up transforming in the energy and battery space. Van Ijzerloo is the co-founder of MeaningfulDot, a boutique HR advisory helping scale-ups grow by taking care of the ‘people side’ of scaling up.
