Fons Trompenaars was ranked in the Thinkers 50, a list of the world’s top 50 business thinkers. Every two years, the Thinkers 50 ranking identifies the most influential living thinkers in the field of management in the world.

The author is one of the world’s leading experts on cross-cultural communication and international management. Together with long-time collaborator Charles Hampden-Turner, Trompenaars developed a model of national cultures based on seven dimensions: universalism vs. particularism; individualism vs. collectivism; neutral vs. emotional; specific vs. diffuse; achievement vs. ascription; sequential vs. synchronic; and internal vs. external control.

The model, developed after extensive research across over 60 cultures and 100.000 managers, helps explain how people in different national cultures interact with each other in general and in business.

Trompenaars is the author of the award winning Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business(1994). With Charles Hampden-Turner, he also wrote Seven Cultures of Capitalism; Building Cross-Cultural Competence; and 21 Leaders for the 21st Century.

He was also the creator of the concept of culture as an onion – which has different layers and you can only see the inside once you open the external layers. This concept is vastly used in AFS activities around the world. You can watch Fons Trompenaars explaning this concept, and also the seven dimensions in the video below: