Pauline Ferrer - Teaching Lead (Peru)

“I've had the luck of having her in some of my teams and I can say that working with Roos is a true joy because of the personal and professional traits she brings with her. She is a highly sensitive and intuitive person whom I'll recommend for any project or job that requires multi-disciplinair teamwork, flexible thinking skills, projection and insights. She is a versatile, reflexive person that can add value to a wide range of endeavors.”

Eva Hoffman - Teaching Lead (USA)

“Roos has an incredible knack for getting people creatively ‘unstuck’, and a gift for bringing people together to work through creative processes that would otherwise feel quite lonely. I love that she draws inspiration from such a wide variety of sources (creative theory, management theory, behavioural science, spirituality) - and she has an incredibly creative way of drawing unexpected connections between these fields in order to find fresh solutions to messy challenges.”

Paul Clinton - Alumni (UK)

“I found the 1-on-1 Office Calls a real game changer. I found the opportunity to bounce your different intangible and seemingly unconnected concepts and thoughts with someone else was the glue needed to connect the dots.

For me personally, after each call I felt enthused and inspired to keep pushing my thinking further to do the best project I can do. The recommendations Roos gave proved a fundamental cog to my final insights.”

Caitlin Yacu - Alumni (USA)

“I dove into IDEO U's Storytelling for Impact course eager to learn. At first it seemed straightforward, but as I prototyped my story, I became increasingly stuck. Fixed mindset crept in and I felt like a failure. I noticed the most helpful feedback always came from the same person: Roos. I scheduled a call with her. When we chatted, she helped me relax into a growth mindset and by the end of our first call I was bursting with epiphanies. In 30 minutes Roos taught me how to overcome my blockage and write my story well. Roos coached me to untangle my most stubborn knots and I recommend her to anyone looking to unlock their creativity.”

Kathleen M Margolis - Alumni (USA)

“Roos is a delightful and insightful coach. She teaches the value of connecting and collaborating in the design thinking process using her own style of participating in these essential efforts. In a time where business models can be so competitive they lack creativity, she promotes the collaborative model that brings creativity back to a group and its participants.”

Mridusmita - Alumni (India)

“My AHA moment was after my call with Roos, before that I was really stressed, but Roos helped me to see and acknowledge the special pressure points of my idea and focus on them by detailing them out. That really helped me.”

Kali Nikitas - Chair Communication Arts / MFA Graphic Design at OTIS College of Art & Design (USA)

Over the past seventeen years, I have been witness to Roos Giethoorn's incredible career. She is fearless in her practice, committed to staying true to her self and her values. All that she has built, at its core, is based on being of service to others and making life better for individuals, communities, cities, enterprises.

Roos is one of the nicest people I have met and consistently shows a level of generosity that is unmatched. Although Roos is still young and has a full life ahead of her, she has already accomplished what most people do in a full career. So, it is safe to say that she is only just begun. I would recommend Roos for anything because if she is inquiring or applying, she means business and she will bring 110% to every project and every position she accepts.

HETAL MUDRA - Community Architect at Somaiya School of Design (Mumbai)

“Roos is our soft skills coach at Somaiya School of Design. She mentors our students on diverse topics like empathy, observation, time and energy management, procrastination, creativity etc. She has curated the sessions with immense nuance. She took a lot of effort to understand the backgrounds of our students and understand Indian culture to design relevant sessions. She has created a safe space for our students to share their struggles and challenges. 

Inspite of these sessions being on zoom, our students have connected with her immensely and are learning very valuable lessons which are becoming a foundation for their design journey. Our students are able to apply their learnings from her sessions in their daily lives to bring in harmony and creativity in work and life.”

Marcel Robben - Municipality of Arnhem (NL)

In my role as director of temporary initiatives, Roos sought to collaborate with me. Roos knew better than anyone how to make the connection between me as a civil servant and the 'creatives' in the city. With a task to deal with the temporality in the city instead of continuing to think about large-scale planned area developments, Roos advised me and the municipality of Arnhem how to make use of more creative and temporary initiatives.

At the time, Roos also contributed to learning to think in (creative) possibilities. She inspired to see different interpretations of public space and urban development than usual and to connect to the underground creative initiators in the city.

In Arnhem, Roos was part of a small group of 'different thinkers' who have since permanently changed the view of the municipality of Arnhem on urban development.

In addition to all these more substantive matters, I also look back on a very nice collaboration with Roos. Always an eye for both the initiator with a daring idea, and the civil servant who needs to learn to deal with this from the general interest and the rules.

Henk Wentink - Municipality of Arnhem (NL)

Roos has the special ability to bring together various contemporary art and design disciplines and their own cultural expressions and to connect them according to their specific significance for the city.

She managed to inspire young people to think about and work on their city, in collaboration with others (placemaking). At the same time, she managed to bring these different cultural expressions (local, regional and (inter) national) to the fore in a positive and constructive manner. Which contributed to mutual understanding and respect.

These were important drivers for the municipality of Arnhem to support Roos (Subwalk) and to ask her to participate in various projects in the field of art, culture, placemaking and branding.

During my work as an art & culture board advisor for Arnhem, I got to know Roos as an enthusiastic, creative and constructive person with whom you can work well and very pleasantly.

Frank Muller - Photographer (NL)

A few months after the start of my extremely difficult photo project about death, I came into contact with Roos Giethoorn from HeyDay. My plan for a photo book was largely in my head, I had conducted some interviews with those involved, but I was not sure how to tackle things.

Over the course of three months Roos has helped me to find the core of my issue in a structured manner. As I explored and discussed that core with her, I found the right words and questions that I needed to move forward.

Roos listens, challenges and thinks along. This way, I progressed in leaps and bounds.