Curriculum vitae
Joop de Vries
After passing through grammar school in Maastricht, the Netherlands, Joop de Vries
studied chemistry in Nijmegen. He worked at Rutgers University (N.J.) and obtained his
doctorate in 1974 with a dissertation in the field of physical chemistry. After military
service, he joined Shell at the research laboratory in Amsterdam. Shortly after, he
gained his first experience with scenario-planning, working for Shell Nederland in
Rotterdam. From 1977 onwards, Joop de Vries held several management positions in
Shell Centre in London, in supply, oil trading, competitive positioning and marketing. On
two occasions, he was a member of the corporate planning team, Group Planning. The
first time, working for Pierre Wack and Ted Newland, he was responsible for the sociocultural dimension of planning projects. In the late eighties, he succeeded Peter
Schwartz as head of the team that develops Shell’s global scenarios, working with Arie
de Geus. He has spoken extensively on scenarios and scenario-planning both within the
company and outside. Subsequently, Joop de Vries was marketing director in the
Netherlands and coordinator of Shell’s activities in Central America.
Joop de Vries left Shell at the end of 1996, and returned to the field of activity in which
he had maintained a personal interest throughout his career, i.e. the qualitative
dimensions of scenario-planning. He joined the International Research Institute on
Social Change and later Cofremca Sociovision, both in Paris, which are institutes
specialised in socio-cultural research. The research findings tend to be used primarily in
the field of marketing, but can be equally valuable in scenario development.
Subsequently, Joop de Vries moved to Heidelberg where he worked for Sinus
Sociovision, with a specific responsibility for “Futures”-projects. Segmentation,
‘mindsets’ and scenarios are the key elements of these projects, which over the years
covered a wide range of topics, such as consumer electronics, human resources,
sustainability, media, housing, health care, politics and lifestyles. .
In 2004, Joop de Vries moved to Maastricht while remaining a consultant at Sinus
Sociovision. He compiled his experiences with scenario-planning and socio-cultural
research in a book entitled “Wiens Europa wint ?” (‘Whose Europe Wins ?’), published
in December 2006 by Business Contact in Amsterdam. In this book, he presents a
segmentation of European society that does not follow national borders but profiles of
values and aspirations - which was subsequently developed into three “scenarios of
European society”. The scenarios cover a wide range of social and business themes, act
as a ‘common language’, and provide a framework for dialogue.