Integrity & Culture:

Highlights from the Week of Integrity 2025

From 27 to 31 October, organizations across the Netherlands and beyond came together for the Week of Integrity 2025, a week dedicated to reflection, dialogue, and action on how integrity strengthens culture, trust, and long-term business resilience.

Opening: Integrity as a cultural foundation

The week opened with a clear message: integrity is the cultural foundation for resilient institutions.

Speakers Mirjam Bakker-Vergouw and Lousewies van der Laan highlighted the urgency of restoring trust in a polarized world.

Prof. Dr. Muel Kaptein delivered an interactive keynote introducing a practical framework for measuring and managing ethical culture, setting the tone for a week focused on how integrity sustains open, just, and sustainable societies.

The week also marked the launch of the seventh edition of the Book of Integrity, “Culture of Integrity”, featuring essays from business leaders and experts on how ethical culture underpins sustainable growth. The book set the tone for the discussions that followed: integrity is not just a principle, but a practice that defines how organizations lead, decide, and grow responsibly.

Partner Spotlight

The Week of Integrity thrives thanks to its many partners, whose creativity and engagement brought the theme to life across sectors and industries:

• KPMG published a five-part blog series inspired by Prof. Kaptein’s keynote, each day exploring a dimension of ethical culture—from the value of integrity and the balance between hard and soft controls, to preventing ethical complacency.

• Forvis Mazars launched a daily blog series analyzing corruption risks through 99 FCPA cases, covering topics like kickbacks, nepotism, shell companies, and self-reporting—concluding with a practical self-scan for organizations.

  Kickbacks en fictieve facturatie: zo herkent u het in de praktijk - Forvis Mazars - Nederland

• NIBC Bank released its updated Code of Conduct, hosted an engaging internal event with CEO Nick Jue and guest speaker Prof. Marjan Olfers, and reinforced its Speak Up culture with interactive role-plays and manager-led initiatives.

• Damen, in collaboration with Van Oord and SBM Offshore, organized a Compliance Champion spotlight, an open Compliance Café, and an Industry Roundtable on Culture, encouraging open dialogue and peer learning.

• On October 27, Geert Vermeulen from De Integriteitscoördinator and Lucianne Verweij, Business Integrity Specialist, hosted a session inviting experts to discuss Whistleblowing Management Systems and related topics such as the benefits of a speak-up culture, the value of effective speak-up mechanisms, and the associated challenges.

  Marijntje Zweegers, Research and Prevention Coordinator at the Dutch Whistleblowers Authority, provided insights into the role of the Huis voor Klokkenluiders, while Wim Vandekerckhove guided participants through the Speak-Up Self-Assessment (SUSA) online tool.

• Triple Jump encouraged employees to engage in informal lunch discussions about integrity and sustainability, helping colleagues reflect on how everyday choices shape ethical behavior. They complemented this with an Integrity Quiz and an invitation to read the Book of Integrity, featuring a contribution from their Compliance Manager, Margherita Noto.

These initiatives demonstrated how integrity can be embedded across sectors, from finance and infrastructure to professional services and compliance.

Seminar: Culture and Integrity in a Shifting World

At the seminar “Culture and Integrity in a Shifting World”, participants explored how organizations can uphold integrity amid growing geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty.

The session opened with Casper Roerade (Evofenedex), who outlined how global trade fragmentation and political pressures are reshaping corporate governance and ethical expectations.

A panel featuring Christiene Everaars, Tekla Surguladze (Magnum), Alessandro Fontana (Saipem do Brasil), and Angeliki Mitropoulou (SBM Offshore) — moderated by Suzanne Kröner-Rosmalen (NautaDutilh) — examined integrity challenges across global supply chains and ESG compliance.

Sonia Garcia delivered a compelling keynote on the role of organizational culture and psychological safety, while Mariet de Boer and Twan Hol from the Dutch Whistleblower Authority shared practical tools to foster open, speak-up environments.

Closing: Integrity as a capability

The week concluded with an inspiring message from global thought leader Brett Hudson: integrity must be more than a value — it must be a capability.Hudson emphasized that ethical failures often result from structural weaknesses rather than individual flaws. He called on leaders to intentionally design systems that enable integrity under pressure and to use technology, including AI, responsibly, as a support for human judgment and values.

The Week of Integrity 2025 once again proved that integrity is not only about compliance but about culture, leadership, and courage. Across industries, partners showed how principles can be turned into practice, strengthening trust, resilience, and purpose in an increasingly complex world.

Keep the conversation going

Integrity is not a one-week theme — it’s a year-round commitment.

There are 52 weeks of integrity, and organizations are encouraged to keep the momentum going.

If you’re inspired to take action, explore the Week of Integrity Toolbox — a collection of free resources, case studies, and interactive tools that can be used any time of the year to strengthen integrity, spark dialogue, and build ethical cultures within your organization.