What working in Curaçao taught me

In 2017, Philip Morris sent me to Curaçao to launch a new affiliate from scratch. On paper it was a clear career step: a new market and a new organisation to build. I landed in Willemstad with a European plan in my bag. Tight agendas, fast meetings, direct conversations, quick decisions.

Within a few days that plan had quietly fallen apart. And what replaced it shaped the way I work more than any role I've had since. Not because of the job. Because of the culture.

The culture shock I didn't expect

Meetings started late. Conversations drifted to family, weekend plans and whatever was happening on the island before anyone mentioned business. My carefully planned back-to-back schedule collapsed within days.

At first I saw inefficiency. In reality, the people around me were building something I hadn't yet learned to value. Willemstad itself should have been a hint. Its historic inner city and harbour are a UNESCO World Heritage site, a place shaped by centuries of trade between very different people. Doing business there has always been about more than the transaction.

Business as relationship, not transaction

In Curaçao you don't close deals with people you barely know. Partnerships are built on context: who someone is, where their family fits, how they're connected to the wider community. The small talk I was trying to skip wasn't a detour. It was the work.

Erin Meyer describes this well in her Harvard Business Review piece on negotiating across cultures. In some cultures, trust grows from confidence in someone's skills and reliability. In others, it comes from emotional closeness and friendship first. I had arrived fluent in the first kind and almost illiterate in the second.

The moment it clicked was when a local distributor invited me to his daughter's graduation party. What I first saw as a social obligation was, in fact, an invitation into trust. That relationship became one of the strongest commercial partnerships we built.

How it changed the way I work with clients

Curaçao forced a shift I still rely on today. Before, I focused on delivering services efficiently. Afterwards, I focused on building the kind of relationships that make better work possible in the first place.

I used to keep personal and professional strictly apart. I learned that a real human connection makes the professional collaboration stronger, not softer. And I stopped measuring success only by finished projects and revenue. Depth of relationship and long-term value turned out to be better predictors of both.

The communication lessons that stuck

Working across language and cultural lines teaches you things no business course does. Curaçao is a properly multilingual place, where Papiamentu, a Portuguese-based creole, is one of the official languages, and you notice quickly how much gets lost between what you say and what lands.

• Clarity beats cleverness. A complex idea only works if the other person understands it.
• Context beats content. Knowing someone's background changes how a message is received.
• Patience saves time. Rushed communication creates misunderstandings that cost far more later.
• Showing beats explaining. When words fall short, a visual bridges the gap.

Those four lessons now shape how I run strategy sessions, brief creative teams and advise clients.

Why it matters back in Europe

What I learned on a Caribbean island became a quiet advantage in European markets. Clients stay longer when they feel understood as people rather than accounts. Projects improve when there's enough trust for honest feedback. Decisions move faster when the relationship has already removed the friction.

There's an irony in that. The relationship-first approach I picked up in a slower business culture ended up producing faster, better outcomes over time. It's a big part of why I think companies need a strategic creative partner rather than another supplier.

What I took home

What started as a career assignment became the foundation for how I work today. Curaçao taught me that strong business outcomes don't come from sharper contracts or faster meetings. They come from trust, cultural awareness and genuine human connection, and from being willing to go to the graduation party.

If you're building something across cultures, or simply want a partner who takes the relationship as seriously as the work, I'd enjoy a conversation. You can read more about how I work, see selected work, or book a 1-1.

— Joost