About me

Hi, I'm Maurits. Odd and fun, and serious about learning.

I'm an education entrepreneur, speaker, and serial tinkerer based in North Brabant. I co-founded Van Haren Learning Solutions, help shape the certifications professionals actually use, and spend my spare time building things, currently a house and a greener street.

Most of what I do comes down to two verbs: connect people who should know each other, and enable them to change something that matters.

Maurits van der Plas
North Brabant, NL

The short version

Learning has always been central in my life — not because it came easily, but precisely because it didn't. From an early age I faced severe dyslexia, and school often felt built for one specific kind of learner that I simply wasn't. That struggle taught me the thing I now build my career around: there is no single way to learn, and a system that rewards only one way loses a lot of capable people.

So I went looking for side doors — and eventually started building them for other people. I co-founded Van Haren Learning Solutions, where we help trainers, partners, and organisations turn the best practices worth teaching into things people can actually use. Along the way I've helped shape industry certifications like BIAN, CATS CM, and P3.express, and in 2019 co-founded a chapter of the Association of Enterprise Architects.

I believe quality education is one of the few real levers we have on the hardest problems of this century. That's a serious belief — but I try to hold it in a way that's curious, a little playful, and allergic to being boring.

What I do

🎓
Education entrepreneur
Co-founder & director of Van Haren Learning Solutions.
🎤
Speaker
On stages across Europe — from the Hakuba Forum to Sofia and Leuven.
🤝
Community builder
Co-founder of the Association of Enterprise Architects chapter.
🔧
Serial tinkerer
Always building something — a house, a street, a side project.

The slightly longer version

2010–2015
Avans Hogeschool, Den Bosch
B.A.Sc. in Business Administration — management, economics, and law. The foundation, and the first place I learned to learn on my own terms.
2015–2018
Sales & Marketing Manager, Van Haren Publishing
Getting close to how knowledge actually reaches the people who need it — and where it gets stuck.
2019
Co-founded the Association of Enterprise Architects chapter
With René Vleesschauwer and Daniël van Loon, on 29 August 2019 — a home for practitioners to find each other.
Today
Co-founder & Director, Van Haren Learning Solutions
Helping trainers, partners, and organisations turn best practices into learning people can use — and shaping certifications like BIAN, CATS CM, and P3.express.
Always
Speaker, writer & tinkerer
On stages across Europe, in essays on the Insights blog, and on whatever I happen to be building at home.

A few things I believe

Objections are invitations
Every "no" is a door to a deeper truth — in business and in education alike.
Communities beat courses
A course teaches one person. A community changes a whole field.
There's no single way to learn
Build more doors in, and you stop wasting capable people.

Off the clock

When I'm not working on learning, I'm usually building something with my hands or my neighbours — currently a house and a greener street. They scratch the same itch: learning by doing, with other people.

See my side projects →
🏗️ IN PROGRESS
Building a house
🌱 COMMUNITY
Sustainable streets

Let's make something a little less boring.

Talks, collaborations, learning design, or just a good conversation. I'm always up for it.

Say hello Read the Insights