Inge Van Belle’s leadership journey

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Challenges and opportunities for women in leadership and the path to gender parity






Oksana Lavri Future work expert 11. June 2024 5 min read
Table of contents

Leadership and career journey

How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?


Reflections on the past, future Trends, and mentorship

Can you share any mistakes you’ve encountered in your professional journey?
How do you find out if there are such people in your organization?
When hiring for senior roles within your business, what specific criteria do you consider, especially concerning gender diversity? What aspects of your business do you believe attract top talent?






Meet Inge Van Belle , Partner with Stanton Chase and Co-founder of Herculean Alliance. She specializes in Executive search, leadership & culture, board member, championing employee engagement, and was recently awarded 50Under50 MEA Africa and Middle East. In this interview, Inge Van Belle shared her leadership and career journey, emphasizing the importance of gender balance and diversity in leadership positions. She highlighted diverse organizations’ significant positive impact on creativity, problem-solving, and employee engagement. Inge discussed the ongoing challenges of achieving gender parity in executive roles and underscored women’s need to take proactive steps in positioning themselves for leadership roles. Get insights on building and sustaining confidence in leadership, reflecting on her professional experiences and the importance of mentorship.

Leadership and career journey
Inge Van Belle shared the significance of gender balance and diversity in leadership positions, highlighting the positive impact of diverse organizations on creativity, problem-solving, and employee engagement. Inge also emphasized the need for more women in executive roles to enhance profitability and social responsibility while addressing the challenges faced by the next generation of leaders, such as technological disruption and employee disengagement.

Q: How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
Diversity -and thus gender balance- matters at every level in the organization and has proven its benefits by now. Studies show that a diverse organization is more creative and innovative. It also masters problem-solving better and has more engaged and productive employees. I personally strongly advocate gender diversity in leadership positions, and I took on the mission to help women claim that seat at the table, not only in the C-suite but also across the Board.

Companies with women in executive positions are more profitable, more socially responsible, and provide safer workplaces. However, we still have a long way to go before we achieve gender balance across boards.

According to a recent study by Deloitte , less than a quarter of the board positions globally are occupied by women, 23% to be more precise. I’m happy to see that governmental action is yielding results by imposing quotas, targets, and disclosures on gender parity. But we shouldn’t just rely on the government but also hold shareholders, C-suites, and board chairpersons accountable for this.

I see a clear shift in awareness and willingness to promote gender balance on board, but it’s taking time. To accelerate this, I strongly urge women to take action and position themselves as board members, even at an early career stage.

Q: What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
This generation and the next generation of leaders face many complex challenges that lead to uncertainty. The fast pace of technology might disrupt their business sooner or later, or the belief of lack leads to geopolitical tensions, wars, and polarity. The main challenge that I see is the disengaged workforce. 77% of the employees are currently disengaged. 17% are actively disengaged, meaning they consciously or unconsciously sabotage the organization. It leads to a huge loss of productivity and economic loss, up to 8.8 trillion EUR per year, which is equal to 9% of the global GDP. Therefore, we call employee engagement a wicked problem.

Employee engagement has become a top 3 priority for CEOs nowadays. But despite the awareness, there is still a lot of work to do.

I think that a wicked problem like this can only be solved by joining forces. By building ecosystems and communities, carried and driven by captains of industry, experts coming from all corners of different sectors, sharing best practices, and thinking and learning out of the box.

We need many community-driven initiatives, and one of these projects is the Employee Engagement Awards that we have set up with our partners in Belgium and the UAE.

Q: How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?
Throughout my career, I have been very blessed with leaders and mentors around me who have been encouraging and challenging me to become a better version of myself.

They have taken bold decisions by giving me opportunities that were out of my comfort zone and that really pushed my boundaries. Quite often, I was surprised by their choice of me for a specific job. But I grabbed these chances with both my hands, inspired by Pippi Longstocking: “I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” I always told myself that there would always be a solution when an obstacle came my way. And there have been a lot of obstacles indeed. Being able to conquer them gave me the confidence to say yes to every new opportunity.



Reflections on the past, future trends, and mentorship
Learn about their professional journey, highlighting the importance of leadership and people management. Inge Van Belle shared past mistakes, including retaining inappropriate employees, and highlighted the detrimental impact of tolerating toxic behavior on team morale and engagement.

Q: Can you share any mistakes you’ve encountered in your professional journey?
Yes, of course, as an entrepreneur as well as during my corporate career, I have made tons of mistakes. And I’m not ashamed to share them, because it’s part of my learning path, and I hope others can learn from them. My biggest mistakes are actually related to people and leadership. The fact that I have kept some employees in my team/organization for too long, even though my intuition told me that it wasn’t the right fit. Too often, I told myself that we would be able to figure it out. But when an employee shows toxic behavior, you have to face the brutal fact.

No matter how good employees are in their jobs, nothing kills their engagement or motivation more than watching their leaders tolerate bad behavior. “No brilliant jerks”, as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings states.
As humans, we have a tendency to postpone tough decisions. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to make it clear that those who are deliberately actively uninvolved have a choice between two options: Either make an effort or leave the team or the organization.

Q: How do you find out if there are such people in your organization?
Ask yourself if you and/or your team members would be relieved if certain individuals left. If the answer is yes, then you should take a closer look at this situation. Identifying the cause of their disengagement is crucial. Is it a result of certain circumstances or is it caused by the person’s general attitude? Are there other employees who behave in the same way? Even the engagement of positive employees can take a serious dent under specific circumstances. Consider, for example, a merger with another company, a terrorizing boss, or the lack of promotion or pay raise for several years. Perhaps there is a valid reason for the lack of commitment. And if there is, acknowledge the problem and do everything you can to fix it. If you find that their disengagement has less to do with certain circumstances than with their general attitude, then you should intervene quickly. Let them know in no uncertain terms that such behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in this organizational culture. The best way to do this is through a personal conversation in which you specify that you are doing what is possible about the circumstances and remind them of their own responsibility to improve their attitude.

Q: When hiring for senior roles within your business, what specific criteria do you consider, especially concerning gender diversity? What aspects of your business do you believe attract top talent?
When we look at the right leader for a specific role, we look at it from a holistic perspective. And at that point, gender often becomes irrelevant. It’s about finding the most suitable leader for the organization.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend taking gender as the main decision factor when hiring a person. I’m a partner with Stanton Chase, an executive search and leadership advisory firm. By default, every leadership search is a diversity search.

Our executive search strategy consists of three components.

First , there are the technical skills (expertise, years of relevant experience, knowledge, etc.), which we consider to be the Olympic minimum.
Second , there’s the leadership behavior skillset to help define whether a leader has the right leadership skills required for the specific position.
And last but not least , it’s about the cultural match between the individual and the organization.


We call it the sustainability factor, and it is the main reason why a leader stays and thrives within a specific company. A person may have all the best competencies and fantastic leadership skills. If they don’t go about things in a similar way to the others in the organization, or if they can’t adapt to the culture, it simply won’t work. That’s why it’s so important to be crystal clear about your organizational culture, whatever it may be like.

If you have a clearly defined culture, it will be easier for you to attract the right talent. Your vibe attracts your tribe.

Culture is always there. The “smell of the place” is an invisible aspect, yet everyone can feel it.


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