Sophie Witsenburg is a broadly skilled consultant with close to twenty years of global experience within the energy industry. As a member of Spencer Stuart’s Industrial Practice, she leverages cross-cultural skills, commercial acumen and management experience to partner with customers toward leadership solutions.

Sophie’s style is straightforward, collaborative and focused on execution: setting a clear agenda, driving progress, and taking action to elevate teams and organizations. She is noted for her ability to quickly learn and become effective across diverse positions — from HR to marketing, M&A, and business development — within past roles at two large blue-chip energy companies. Based in the Netherlands, Sophie is used to working with multicultural teams and has contributed to various high-profile projects across EMEA.

In 2025, Sophie was the incoming chair of the Giving Back charity in The Hague. That same year, she published a paper on balancing technology and geopolitics for supervisory boards for NR Governance.

Expertise

Sophie has specialized experience in:
  • C-level and non-executive director searches
  • Succession planning
  • Leadership advisory assignments
  • Local and regional management
  • Governance dynamics

Previous experience

  • On the RWE Business Development team for Hydrogen, Sophie successfully led the first-ever tender for green hydrogen in the Dutch market, putting RWE's "Growing Green" strategy into practice.
  • At Shell, she delivered significant strategy and change projects for renewables and energy solutions, capping her employment as post-merger integration manager where, among other achievements, she led the integration of a portfolio company supplying renewable electricity, gas and bespoke cleaner energy options to B2B customers in the UK.

Education

  • MSc from the University of California, Davis
  • B.A. from University College Utrecht
  • Recipient of multiple study grants, including the Fulbright Graduate Student Grant

Practice Areas