About us | VLDW

Who we are

Personal, selective and involved after the start.

We support organisations personally and professionally with recruitment and HR questions, with solutions that fit the stage a company is in. From young startups to listed companies.

Personal
You have one point of contact who knows your company. No account manager passing you on.
Selective
A selection tailored to your team, not a pile of resumes. Whatever we put forward, we have spoken to.
Honest about the question
Sometimes the answer is not a new hire. If we see that, we say so.
Involved after the start
A placement has only succeeded if someone is still there, and still enjoying it, a year later. That is why we offer a 100% guarantee.

Founder

Michael van Leeuwen

From startups to listed companies: Michael finds matches that go beyond a resume, with an intuitive approach and in depth interview techniques. His starting point is truly understanding people and connecting them with the working environment that suits them.

His career began with a simple question: why do so many recruitment efforts fail? After years in various HR roles, he saw that the usual methods were too superficial. The breakthrough came when he combined his background in interview techniques and psychology with recruitment.

Today VLDW combines that human expertise with AI. Not to replace people, but to make their qualities more visible. AI recognises patterns at a scale people cannot; only an experienced recruiter understands the nuances of personality, culture and potential.

“Recruitment is not about matching resumes, but about connecting people with their ideal working environment.”

Michael van Leeuwen

100%stay the first year · 95% after a year

22years of recruitment experience

500+successful placements

50+companies helped

Business Partner

Nardi van Leeuwen

Nardi started sourcing for VLDW in 2020, alongside his studies, for DSG among others. What began as a small set of tasks grew into the role he has today. He learned the trade from the ground up, candidate by candidate, and now has six years of practice behind him.

In the meantime he completed his bachelor in Commercial Economics at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. During those years he brought three projects to a good end: he raised the conversion rate of a womenswear brand by 150% in six weeks, he was responsible for setting up the menswear line of a large jewellery brand, from first plan to launch, and he took the minor Cross Cultural Business Skills, about working with people from different cultures. He uses that last one daily when approaching international candidates. His knowledge of e-commerce comes from those same years, together with a course and a period of selling online himself.

Since graduating he has worked for VLDW full time. He handles the sourcing, the sales and the marketing, he built this website, and he leads the AI side of the agency: how we use AI tools to find the right people faster and more precisely.

“With AI we find in no time the people an advertisement waits months for. AI helps with the search, we decide who fits.”

Nardi van Leeuwen

Our history

From HR to recruitment with AI.

This timeline follows the career of Michael van Leeuwen, which began in 1988. VLDW itself was founded in 2004 and is now 22 years along.

1988 to 2003
Foundations in HR and recruitment
Started in traditional HR roles at various organisations. Built expertise in personnel management and organisational development.
2004
Founding VLDW
Starting an own practice, focused on a personal approach and lasting matches. The first scaleup clients and new ways of working.
2005 to 2015
Specialism in RaaS: Recruitment as a Service
Developing and implementing Recruitment as a Service (RaaS) at multimedia and IT corporates. The focus shifted to recruitment and selection with a structural, flexible approach. The first major successes placing management, sales and online marketing professionals.
2016 to 2023
Recruitment on the spot for scaleups B2C and B2B
Specialising in fast growing tech and e-commerce companies. Developing and rolling out the Recruitment On The Spot and Recruitment as a Service models. Focus on speed, quality and lasting growth.
2023 to 2025
Leadership HR & Recruitment
As senior HR manager for 2 corporates, formed teams and rolled out HR & Recruitment. Within VLDW, also assembled recruitment teams for RaaS and ROTS, for small and large companies.
2025 to today
Recruitment with AI
Introducing AI tools that support searching and matching, combined with the experience of a career that began in 1988.

Michael van Leeuwen working at his laptop

Dewi van Leeuwen Sastromedjo in conversation with Michael van Leeuwen

The team

Recruitment is not a puzzle but architecture.

VLDW is a family business, and that is no detail. The company carries the Van Leeuwen surname of Michael, Nardi and Dewi, and all three of them stand behind it. You do not work with a changing account team, but with three people who know each other through and through and hold each other to the same standard. What we do for you, we first do ourselves: build a team that stays.