She cared too much to stay quiet. And that's exactly how she made a difference.

Early in her career, Nienke Kehrer was once asked a version of that question. She still thinks about it. Not because it made her doubt herself, but because of what it revealed. Why would caring out loud be a problem? Why would having a clear sense of what you stand for count against you?

She didn't have the perfect answer in the room that day. But she's spent her whole career answering it anyway. And the answer is always the same: speak up about what matters to you. Every single time she has, it opened a door.

This is her story.

What you see on LinkedIn:

What you don't see: someone who never had a master plan. Who ended up in finance almost by accident. And who built a role, and a platform, out of nothing but the willingness to say out loud what she believed in.

Where the drive came from:

Nienke grew up privileged, and she knew it. Her parents made sure of that.

"You don't know how good you have it. You'll only really understand that later, when you've seen more of the world."

She went looking for that understanding. During her history degree she focused on the conflicts happening right now, not centuries ago. She organised a charity week as a student. She interned at UNESCO to see how conflict was discussed at a diplomatic level. And then she decided that reading and writing about it wasn't enough.

So she went to Greece, to volunteer with refugees during the crisis.

"If I had to name one life-changing experience, that's near the top of the list. You realise that you and I could just as easily have been sitting there. We just happened to be born somewhere else."

It's easy to keep suffering at a distance when it comes to you as numbers and graphs in a newspaper. Sitting across from someone and hearing their story is something else entirely. That month changed how she saw the world. And it made one thing permanent: she gets her energy from working with and for people, to make their lives a little more bearable.

Her first job in the private world, and the deliberate choices inside it

Then came COVID. Jobs weren't exactly lying around. Then the opportunity to work at Deloitte came around, and even though she didn’t think in advance consultancy was the job for her, she decided to take the chance:

"I thought: this is a good place to start, let's see where it takes me."

And it took her somewhere good. Because here's the thing about Nienke. Even when the choice isn't always what she envisioned in advance, she makes a deliberate choice to what she does with it.

She was clear from day one about what she cared about. She wanted to work in the public sector. So she sought out exactly that kind of work, and also did a lot for the Deloitte Impact Foundation, the firm's not-for-profit arm. And when a new team was being set up, she simply told the incoming director it looked like something she'd want to be part of. So she was.

"I made a very deliberate set of choices inside a place I hadn't deliberately chosen, but gave me a chance too good to ignore. That's something I'd want to pass on. Take the opportunities, but mainly think about what you actually want, take up the space for it, and be vocal about it. That's brought me so many good things."

Deloitte taught her a great deal, and she's genuinely glad she got to know the private sector from the inside. It's a fast, ambitious environment full of driven young people, where a good idea can actually get off the ground because the resources are there. She learned how organisations work, how decisions get made, and how much she could shape her own path just by being clear about what she wanted.

Choosing the room where it counts

Having seen the private sector up close, Nienke knew more clearly what she wanted next: an institution where societal questions sat closer to the centre of the work itself. She was still junior enough to make the move easily, and honest enough with herself to admit she wanted to.

DNB appealed to her precisely because it doesn't sit neatly in one box. It's a public institution and a financial one at the same time. That combination, plus a role that genuinely excited her, is what made her apply.

She started as an advisor to the executive board , splitting her time between sustainability policy and a coordinating role for the supervisory directorate. It was an interesting seat for someone that early in their career: in the room where senior decisions were discussed, gathering the expertise, packaging it, sitting at the table.

But over time she noticed something about herself. The work was too operational for her. She had little ownership over the content or the direction.

"You're the bridge. You pick things up and you put them down again with the directors. But the topics aren't yours."

So she made another deliberate choice. She started talking to people across the bank about what actually happens inside DNB, arranged a secondment to a different team, and moved into a more advisory, consultancy-style role: researching how the bank works, whether it works well, and advising on what could be better. More room for her own ideas. More creativity. More ownership.

Nobody handed her that move. She went and found it.

The idea she refused to let go of

Years earlier, at a sustainability event during her Deloitte days, Nienke had heard about the concept of a Future Generation Board. A group that represents the voice of generations not yet born in the decisions organisations make today.

"I remember thinking: oh, that's brilliant. And so important."

The idea stayed in her head. When she got to DNB, she went looking to see whether something like it already existed. It didn't.

"So I thought: okay, maybe that's a nice opportunity to set it up myself."

She asked a colleague she clicked with, to build it with her. And then came the part that tells you everything about how change actually happens inside a large institution. Nearly a year of conversations. Pitching the idea to colleagues at every level. Listening, adjusting, improving, building a base of support, refining the concept over and over.

Then they took it to the board. And asked, essentially, if they could try.

The board said yes.

"That's not normal, and it's not something that happens everywhere. Your own idea, landing with the directors. And then seeing how many people get genuinely excited about it and start making room for you."

They launched last October with six members. Nienke and Marloes are co-chairs. There's an age cap of 35, deliberately, so that younger people get access to the kind of table that isn't usually given. All of it runs alongside their full-time jobs, on their own time.

" As a young professional in a large organisation, like DNB, you often contribute to initiatives led by others. The Future Generation Board is different. This is something we shape ourselves and are genuinely responsible for.

A small venture, run inside a very large one.

What she actually wants it to do

The mission is simple to say and hard to do: bring the voice of future generations into DNB's strategic decision-making, and get long-term thinking more firmly embedded in an institution that, for all its long-term mandate, still has to deal with the politics of the day.

"I care a lot about things like climate change and the state of the world right now. I want to open the conversation. I'm not saying every decision has to be based only on that. But if we can start talking about it together, and be a bit more conscious of how the choices we make now still matter in 30, 40, 50 years, that's already a beautiful start."

They're not doing it alone. They're in close contact with Future Generation Boards at other institutions, sharing what works, building blueprints, learning from each other. What started as one idea in one head is becoming part of a movement.

Nienke's career advice:

💡 Take up the space to be vocal about what you believe in. Even if someone calls you an activist for it. In her experience, that word says more about the person using it than about you.

💡 Being vocal is not a risk. It's how the opportunities find you. The more clearly you say what you care about, the more you'll notice the right people and the right chances moving toward you.

💡 Go and find the people who are on your wavelength, who care about the same things. Then don't be afraid to stand up for it, together.

💡 You don't only make impact at organisations that already exist to make impact. If you go somewhere like Shell and manage to shift something real on sustainability, that's an enormous impact. Follow your own sense of what matters. You can always adjust course later.

And she'll be honest: it isn't always easy. She's had the reactions too, the moments of wondering whether to soften it, or whether to leave it off her LinkedIn. But she keeps coming back to one belief: if you do what you genuinely care about, you end up where you're supposed to be.

"Women tend to find this harder than men. Which is exactly why I'm such a strong believer in women doing it anyway. Say what you think. Politely, of course. But say it."

Role Models, the real stories

💜 Because the perfect LinkedIn profile never shows the moment someone decided to speak up anyway. That's usually where the whole story begins.