Caroline Heerema

Caroline Heerema is a former professional and national team athlete who competed in Olympic sailing classes. She is both a Dutch and Danish national. Springing from her career as a professional athlete is a drive to continuously improve performance through nontraditional approaches. After putting sailing behind her, Ms. Heerema developed a passion for creative and human-centered approaches to innovation and currently researches the application of design thinking in business. She recently participated in a number of team-based design thinking projects at the HPI School of Design Thinking, of which the latest focused on devising a concept for introducing the Internet into a prison setting in cooperation with the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Justitz und Verbraucherschütz and JVA Heidering, a prison for convicts with medium-length sentences. Ms. Heerema has studied in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada, and holds a master's degree in management of innovation and business development from the Copenhagen Business School. She can be reached at ccarolineheerema@hotmail.com.