Tom Breur: Biographical Sketch
Tom Breur is a consultant out of deep passion for his work. He can be profoundly analytic, in his passionate quest to drive out the deepest business issues and the nexus point of a business model. It’s all about finding where the least effort will generate the most results. Once the business challenge becomes clear Tom loves to roll up his sleeves and get his ‘hands dirty’. Be it data analysis, market research, data mining or database work. Once the hands-on work gets started, his eyes begin to flicker, and he has a tendency to get carried away. Somewhat self-deprecating, he is proud to be a nerd (e.g. he will happily read statistics books on holiday, out of sheer interest in the topic – while others feel awfully sorry for him!).
Since every assignment involving data invariably brings up ‘surprises in the data’, sometimes minor, sometimes big, he refers to himself as a ‘white collar database chimney sweeper’. There are always problems with the data, in fact, they sometimes seem viciously destined to purposely fool the analyst. One of the things he can still not get enough of is ‘standing in the mud ankle deep’.
He has a profound urge to add value on each and every assignment. He always considers it an important responsibility to truly help his clients improve their business, regardless of whether his contributions make him popular or not. Tom somewhat philosophically considers consultancy a ‘calling’.
Tom has an academic background in Psychology, an education he took up twice. Initially he majored in Clinical Psychology (1986), years later he went back to college to study Economic Psychology (1996) with an emphasis on quantitative methods.
As a professional he has worked in database management, at the outset mainly from the ‘technical’ angle. Later he moved to exploiting information in databases, and combining database analysis with market research. Tom has held positions in non-profit and profit industry (financial services). While working at ING, among others, Tom managed the research department of ING Bank for the Netherlands. In 2004 he launched his own company, XLNT Consulting.
Tom is a regular speaker at international conferences and workshops, and enjoys teaching at the graduate and post-graduate level. He is a contrarian, likes being somewhat controversial, and always holds outspoken opinions. His mission is to trigger lasting improvement and to this end he is always willing to try whatever it takes to challenge knowledge workers towards achieving true business alignment.
Tom is fluent in Dutch, English, French and German.
