What moves us

Much too often great ideas are ignored or fall into oblivion.

We established Debatrix because we believe That ideas can change the world. This is because we know that persuasiveness is crucial for transmitting these ideas accordingly. And because we have seen the tremendous impact an idea makes if presented with great persuasion.

Debatrix originates from the passion for debate. We discovered fairly soon that the debate is an ideal means for developing persuasiveness. This is because the debate is a pressure cooker for improving the most important persuasive skills: listening, reasoning, presenting, placing yourself in someone else’s shoes, and reacting.

Besides we also believe that the debate is a perfect means for exchanging ideas, verifying arguments and enabling mutual understanding, for organisations and the society we live in today. Because the clash of opposite ideas will make a difficult subject that much more comprehensible and it will keep your mind sharp as a knife.

We have witnessed just how much energy an idea brought with tremendous persuasion can summon – for the messenger and the target group. This is something that energizes us, especially if we are able to help you to inspire others with your ideas!

knowing and mastering everything there is to know about persuasiveness is the key to being successful. We are constantly looking for new ways to develop our knowledge, and ourselves. Helping as many people as possible in gaining persuasiveness for their ideas is one of our quarter stones.

Thát is why we work together for Debatrix

What we do

We help professionals, politicians and executives in empowering their persuasive skills and thereby increasing the impact their ideas will have. We organise debates and gatherings where employees, clients, stakeholders, and executives get the chance to share their very best ideas. We achieve great results by offering the knowledge we accumulated over the years on the field of persuasiveness, media and the corporate sector. We make sure our knowledge is translated in a practical and applicable custom-made training in the form of training, coaching and lectures.

In a relatively short period Debatrix has grown to become an internationally awarded trainings bureau renowned on the field of persuasiveness and debate. We teach the leaders of today and tomorrow how to get their message across accordingly and with the required persuasive power. Our experts have been asked for multiple prestigious, high-profile assignments world-wide and have always performed superbly.

We teach the leaders of today and tomorrow how to get their message across with more persuasviness. The past few years we have been coaching (international) leaders in corporate and political life and we arrange daily training for professionals and executives. We are very proud indeed that the American business paper BusinessWeek has placed us at the very top of most promising companies of Europe.

A story to tell

Debatrix was founded in 2005 by Lars Duursma. At the time being you didn’t want to cross swords with Lars in a discussion. He participated in multiple debate competitions all across the world and was crowned four time Dutch, twice European and eventually even World champion debate in 2006.

Early on business developer Job ten Bosch joined Debatrix. Job doesn’t debate, he rather has a technical background having worked as an engineer and entrepreneur. He found out that very often superb ideas are being ignored or forgotten, only because the particular individuals couldn’t manage to get their ideas and messages across with the required persuasive skill

Fast growth of Debatrix

To spread the debate culture and our new ideas on persuasion, we created a platform. In 2008 Debatrix opened a training centre in Rotterdam. The facility includes a luxurious training room, a venue for coaching and an efficient back-office. In November 2006 this approach was awarded by the renowned business magazine Businessweek, nominating us among Europe’s Top-3 of most promising Young Entrepreneurs. The hard work and fast growth did not go unnoticed, as many passionate people in Europe started asking us questions about our approach. In August 2007, our first international branch was opened in the city of empires, Istanbul Turkey. Here we started a new adventure to spread the debate culture in a historically proud country where interaction between cultures and – more recently – rapid social development plays an essential role.

Recognised expertise

Our experts analyse important presentations and debates in the media regularly. They get invited for the NOS news at 3, Goodmorning Holland, Radio 1, BNR Nieuwsradio, Netwerk, Éen vandaag, NOVA and RTL quite often.

The past few years we have published well over a hundred articles on the field of debate, rhetoric and persuasive skill. We keep developing expertise and investigate new ideas by writing and sharing our knowledge. The past few years we have been asked to analyse the Algemene Politieke Beschouwing for the NRC handelsblad. Alongside with the NRC readers we created a practical manual for persuasiveness – ik krijg altijd gelijk – which became a tremendous success and a bestseller. Thousands of people have already signed up for our free persuasiveness tip which we send from www.overtuigtips.nl every week.

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