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Elisabeth van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen

managing Partner

What do I do
As Resilience Advisor, I help people in high-responsibility roles build personal resilience, for a world shaped by cascading disruptions, rather than isolated crises. My work recognizes their dual duty of care, to both their organizations and the people closest to them, and focuses on protecting wellbeing, agency, relationships, and clarity under pressure.
My approach is pragmatic. By mapping key dependencies and vulnerabilities, I translate systemic risks into practical choices for leaders and their trusted circles, supporting thoughtful preparation and more grounded long-term decision-making across uncertain conditions and evolving systemic realities worldwide
My career spans 25 years in professional services, working with organizations worldwide, from start-ups to corporate conglomerates across a wide variety of industries. As Executive Consultant, I select and assess leadership for international clients, as well as advise on career and team development. Over the past 5 years, as Resilience Advisor, I developed and collaborated on methods to increase awareness and understanding of systemic risks related to the polycrisis. I tailored these methods to professionals and business leadership. This addresses the question: what do we actually DO to increase personal and organizational resilience, and how do we create a clear path forward? The program is anchored in reality and empirical evidence, and provides tangible outcomes.
The future requires more than intention, and many lack clarity on meaningful, human-scale adaptation. I believe privilege carries responsibility, which is why my family and I have tested adaptive practices in real conditions. I share what proves effective, turning these insights into roadmaps that help others make informed and responsible choices in a rapidly changing world, strengthening their confidence, widening perspective and supporting more deliberate action across increasingly complex and volatile environments.
Through global networks and think tanks, we work as an ecosystem of systems thinkers and specialist experts. My contribution is translation and integration: linking personal and professional decisions to the deeper shifts reshaping society and the planet. By connecting individual resilience with system-level change, I help leaders navigate uncertainty with clarity, responsibility and purpose, supporting more coherent judgement, strengthening adaptive capacity and enabling grounded action even as external pressures intensify and complexity continues to accelerate.
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Zsolt Szalóczy

Strategic Advisor

What do I do

As a physicist and systems researcher, I examine how energy, environmental, economic, and social systems interact under conditions of structural stress. My focus is the polycrisis — a systemic state where overlapping pressures exceed the design limits of institutions and infrastructures. I translate these complex dynamics into practical frameworks that help organizations, communities, and individuals recognize real constraints, hidden dependencies, and emerging vulnerabilities. Through the Cassandra Program and related initiatives, I develop adaptation-oriented tools that shift the focus from efficiency and optimization toward resilience, redundancy, and structural preparedness. My role is to connect scientific understanding with decision-making reality, enabling leaders to interpret systemic change not as noise, but as a new operating environment that requires different strategic assumptions and more grounded long-term choices.

We are living in an age where consequences are no longer abstract but material, yet many decisions still assume a return to past stability. I work in this field because misdiagnosing the polycrisis leads to maladaptive responses that increase fragility rather than reduce it. The core issue is not temporary disruption, but chronic systemic overload, where pushing for more growth and efficiency deepens risk. I see it as a responsibility to help make structural limits visible and discussable, especially for those whose decisions shape the exposure of many others. Adaptation, in this sense, is a shift toward realism: aligning expectations, strategies, and responsibilities with how coupled human and natural systems actually behave under pressure.

My approach combines systems modeling, interdisciplinary research, and applied program design within international expert networks. Rather than delivering ready-made solutions, we create structured processes that help participants map vulnerabilities, understand system-level drivers, and reassess strategic assumptions. Through CASSee and the Cassandra Program, organizations are guided to integrate long-term constraints, uncertainty, and feedback dynamics into present decisions. The emphasis is on clarity of perception: seeing economic, ecological, and social processes as one interconnected system. When this systemic picture becomes part of everyday decision-making, strategies shift from short-term optimization toward adaptive capacity, responsible risk-taking, and maintaining functionality under volatile and uncertain conditions.

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Balázs Stumpf-Biró

Strategic Advisor

What do I do

As a collapse researcher and network developer, I focus on the societal and ecological implications of systemic instability and on the human processes that enable adaptation. My work addresses the polycrisis as a condition where environmental, economic, and social disruptions converge, challenging not only infrastructure but trust, meaning, and collective agency. As co-founder of the Cassandra Program, I support individuals, organizations, and municipalities in exploring structural vulnerabilities, long-term viability, and the cultural dimensions of resilience. I help create reflective spaces where hidden tensions and unspoken assumptions can surface, allowing more honest strategic dialogue. Alongside research, I work in science communication and international collaboration, translating complex systemic realities into language that supports both understanding and practical engagement.

For me, adaptation is fundamentally human. The polycrisis brings uncertainty, loss of predictability, and limits to control, making psychological stability, trust, and shared meaning decisive factors. I am motivated by how people and communities can remain grounded and cooperative while navigating profound change. Societies often focus on technological fixes while neglecting relational and cultural capacities that determine whether adaptation efforts succeed. Community-level resilience — the ability to deliberate, learn, and act together — is therefore central to my work. This is not only about enduring disruption, but about preserving dignity, agency, and the possibility of meaningful life within tightening ecological and systemic constraints.

My work combines research, facilitation, and network-building across local and international contexts. Within CASSee and related initiatives, I help design processes that foster system-level dialogue in corporate, municipal, and civic settings, intentionally surfacing blind spots, conflicting priorities, and latent risks. I also contribute through international forums, interdisciplinary publications, and public dialogue platforms that connect local experience with global systemic understanding. A key element of my approach is integrating psychological and cultural preparedness into adaptation work. By acknowledging emotional, social, and existential dimensions alongside material risks, we strengthen the human foundations of resilience and support more coherent, responsible decision-making under increasing complexity.

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