Congratulations go out to IDA Foundation’s Ethics and Compliance advisor Geert Vermeulen, who recently received the National Compliance Award 2019 from the hands of Frans Demmers, jury member of the Compliance Award election. The jury unanimously selected Geert for his exemplary role in his personal work as a trainer, speaker and consultant, and in the industry as a whole.

At IDA Foundation, we can fully support this opinion. With our values of integrity and quality, it is clear that we want to have an experienced advisor to ensure we are up-to-date on all ethics and compliance regulations. Our team has benefited from Geert’s great advice and he has provided specialized Code of Conduct training to our employees. While some might say that it is a ‘dry’ or ‘tough’ subject, our experience is that Geert is able to bring the topic to life with fascinating examples, recent cases and challenging questions.

Geert has called winning the award a special highlight in his life. “I have had a portion of good luck in my life and have met wonderful people from time to time, people who saw something in me, who have helped me, who have given me opportunities, who have inspired me or have given me a push in the right direction. Sometimes I was told: you can't do that. And then I thought: we'll see about that. But sometimes I was asked for something, where I said: I don't know if I can do it? And those people said, "Geert, we think you can do it, go and do it." Without those people I wouldn't have been here now. I would like to thank them. And now and then I hope to inspire someone myself or give them a push in the right direction.”

Our team congratulates Geert on this well-deserved win and we look forward to benefiting from Geert’s advice in the years to come.