Joost van Hilst

Joost van Hilst is a researcher at the New Entrepreneurship research group. He has lived in Tilburg since 1998. After gaining various living and working experiences both in the Netherlands and abroad, he chose a more idealistic path—stepping away from business without a purpose. In 2011, he made the switch to Avans University of Applied Sciences. In addition to his role at BWNO, Joost teaches at the Academy for Management and Finance (AMF) and is a guest lecturer at Université Catholique de Lille (France) and Business School Netherlands (Buren).

Expertise

Joost is a researcher with expertise in strategic management, entrepreneurship, business development, sustainable business models, innovation, and change management (with a strong focus on the human side of implementation). He is driven by pragmatic idealism—the belief that the world can be changed for the better, and that the tools exist to figure out how.

Research

Joost is currently involved in the IMPACT-UP! research project, commissioned by the Province of North Brabant.

Career

Joost earned his bachelor’s degree in Commercial Economics from Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg in 2001. He then began his career in international business, working for multinationals such as Ricoh, Bosch, and Wacom. His work focused on (international) Sales & Marketing, where he was responsible for regions including the Benelux, DACH, Nordics, the UK, and the Baltic States.

During both his studies and professional career, Joost lived abroad several times, including in Saarbrücken, Düsseldorf, and London. After a decade in the corporate world, he experienced the so-called “thirty-something dilemma”: he began to question whether this was truly what he wanted and started seeking more personal growth. This prompted a conscious transition into higher education. In 2011, he started teaching Business Economics at AAFM (now AMF), and five years later transitioned into the Business Administration program.

Joost completed his MBA in 2017 and went on to pursue additional training, including Personal Effectiveness in Leading Change at De Baak (2019) and masterclasses in Innovation & Transformation at TIAS Business School (2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, he took several MOOCs on topics such as Decision Making in a Complex and Uncertain World (University of Groningen) and Driving Business Towards the SDGs (Rotterdam School of Management), which sparked a strong interest in sustainability.

Following his move to education, Joost quickly took on coordinating and curriculum development roles. In 2022, he obtained his Senior Examination Qualification (SKE) to further contribute to curriculum innovation. He currently coordinates the international minor Business, Leadership and Sustainability and supervises several graduating students.

In the three years prior to joining BWNO, Joost focused on internationalization, contributing to new Avans policies under the banner of Global Engagement. As a project leader, he helped establish the international community at Avans. He also developed a cross-disciplinary learning trajectory on Transition Capacity for all Avans master’s programs (2023–2024).

Since the 2024–2025 academic year, Joost has been working two days a week with BWNO, where he actively builds bridges between research, education, and the professional field.