After graduating in economics and political sciences, I subsequently worked for Shell, became a member of parliament, party leader and Finance Minister, then took up consultancy and now am the CEO of the VU medical center, one of the two academic medical centres in Amsterdam. Throughout my career I never worked in an environment with such strong beliefs about professional leadership as I now experience and observe in healthcare. “The professional in the lead” seems to be an incontestable paradigm for leadership in healthcare which basically narrows down to “doctors should run hospitals”.