Hans Laroes

Background

About Hans Laroes

Founder of BigElephant. Proud to work together with BBC (UK); RTE (Ireland): YLE (Finland): RTBF (Belgium) and NPO (Nl. Innovative approach to story-creating with people outside of journalism; opening the black box of journalism; creating solutions & empowering individuals and groups; nudging people to leave their 'bubbles'. Startup in design phase; more to follow. In 1988 Hans Laroes (1955) became political anchor for public broadcaster NOS (the largest Dutch newsorganization). He moved to NOS HQ (1992) and became, in the end, editor in chief (2002-2011). Main purpose: bringing together all different media in one organization and leading the digital transformation. NOS was one of the first European broadcasters to succeed and extend it's reach vastly. Important for Laroes: be transparent. Open the ‘black box of journalism’. Enter, and cherish, a different relationship with your audiences. Laroes was chair of the News Assemblee within the European Broadcasting Union (2007-2011). From 2012 on he worked independently for EBU (creating 'Empowering Society, a joint declaration on the core values of Public Broadcasting', and a peer-to-peer system to check progress within the EBU-membership. Was amongst others chair of the Dutch Press Council (2013-2015), and from August 2016 - December 2018 interim editor in chief at KRO-NCRV, one of the Dutch public broadcasters. Main focus: innovation & changing the culture within organizations. Taking journalism onto the next levels in the digital age. Wrote a book "De Littekens van de dag'('Todays' scars') about the fast and ongoing changes in journalism and its relations with it's real owners: the audiences (2012). He wass also a member of the board of The 'Nationale Comite 4 & 5 mei', responsible for the ways The Netherlands remember their victims of war and celebrate their freedom. Hans was until Summer 2020 chair of the (informal) network of editors in chief within EBU (bringing together editors in chief from BBC, ZDF, ARD, NOS, VRT, RTBF, FranceTelevisions, CT, YLE, SR, RTE and others): exchanging best practices and all of the important issues journalism has to deal with.