Sjoerd Maas
Being dispensable is a virtue.
Fractional COO, Integrator, Strategic Advisor, and founder of The Value Architects.
Sjoerd works with scale-up founders and CEOs who feel stuck, not because they lack vision, but because their business still runs through them. His mission: help founder-dependent companies become self-thinking, value-driven organisations.
With over fifteen years guiding high-growth businesses, he created the Value Acceleration Method™: a practical framework that helps leaders shift from being the engine of their company to the architect of its growth.
Where the book comes from
The CEO Parent isn’t just a business book. It’s personal.
Sjoerd is the father of two young sons. A few years ago, reading a parenting book about raising confident kids, he noticed the same patterns he saw every week in the companies he worked with: a parent who takes over instead of waiting. A leader who decides instead of asking. A child who stops trying because it’s faster to let dad do it. A team that stops thinking because it’s faster to ask the founder.
That overlap is where this book started.
Sjoerd has sat in the room when companies broke and when they turned around, from scale-ups finding their first traction to businesses pushing through serious growth. He knows what it costs a founder to hold everything together, and what it takes to finally let go.
“People grow in the space you leave them, not the space you fill.”
He lives in Rotterdam with his wife and their two boys. On family road trips, he’s the one who builds the fire, convinced that raising children, building companies, and getting a fire to catch all come down to the same thing: patience, and knowing when to stop interfering.
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