Power & Pulse is by students, for students: embraced by one of Hotelschool The Hague's affiliated student associations, La Confrérie.
On Wednesday 9 September 2026, roughly 600 Hotelschool The Hague students from both The Hague and Amsterdam traded their regular classroom schedule for a full afternoon. The occasion: the very first edition of Power & Pulse LIVE, a curated stage event built around one question: where does your strength come from? World Forum The Hague generously opened its doors for this special occasion.
It might seem unusual for a hospitality business school to pause its timetable for an entire student population. But that is exactly the point. By making room in the schedule for the whole organisation, Hotelschool The Hague is sending a clear signal: mental health and personal resilience are not an afterthought to education. They are a top priority.
Why this, why now
Hotelschool The Hague prepares students for an international, high-performance industry, one that demands sharp professional skills but, just as importantly, self-knowledge, resilience and the ability to hold your own under pressure. Ambitious, high-achieving students are too often assumed to be self-reliant by default, as if being talented automatically means being resilient. Power & Pulse challenges that assumption directly, and asks a different question: what do we do for young people for whom things already appear to be going well?
“Developing the hospitality leaders of tomorrow means investing in the person behind the professional, not just the skills they bring to the industry. That's why we chose to free up time, resources and space across the entire organisation for this first edition, because mental health deserves the same priority as academic performance,” says Jos Vranken, member of the Board of Directors at Hotelschool The Hague.
Four perspectives, one thread
Power & Pulse LIVE brought together four speakers, each addressing a different facet of strength:
- COURAGE: Astrid Holleeder, on staying true to yourself under extraordinary pressure.
- FOCUS: Mark Tigchelaar, on attention and mental performance from a neuropsychological perspective.
- RESILIENCE: Anton Nootenboom (The Barefoot Dutchman), on setbacks and getting back up, drawing on his experience as a former soldier and veteran of three missions in Afghanistan.
- PERFORMANCE: Duco Telgenkamp, Olympic hockey champion and entrepreneur, on performing when the pressure, and the world's attention, is at its highest.
Former Dutch hockey international and Olympian Wieke Dijkstra, now Managing Director of The Can Do Company, moderated the afternoon and closed with a conversation with Telgenkamp. Together, the four perspectives traced a single arc: the courage to move, the focus to stay on course, the resilience to keep going, and the performance to deliver when it matters most. Not a prescribed answer, but an invitation for every student in the room to find their own.
An idea born close to students
Power & Pulse was developed by Marjolijn Koppenol, a Hotelschool The Hague alumna. Her involvement with students, first as a confidential advisor, later through her role on the Board of Trustees of student association La Confrérie, brought her close to a generation with enormous potential and ambition, but also one from whom a great deal is asked. Out of that experience, and her own personal journey, Power & Pulse was born: not a programme that tells young people how to handle pressure, but a concept that creates space for them to discover it themselves.
“Power & Pulse started with what I saw in students I was close to: young people with so much potential, who are still expected to figure out on their own how to carry the pressure that comes with it. I don't want to tell them what strength looks like; I want to give them the space to find their own answer. Bringing that back to my own alma mater, and seeing it embraced this way, makes this first edition personal,” says Marjolijn Koppenol, Hotelschool The Hague alumna and founder of Power & Pulse.
Carried by students, not just for students
Power & Pulse LIVE is only the visible tip of a much broader, year-round initiative, and student association La Confrérie is central to that. La Confrérie embraced the concept from within the student community itself, and formed an organisational team, led by Aniek Cirkel, chairman of the board, that took ownership of organising and promoting this first edition. Throughout the year, La Confrérie also runs Power & Pulse weeks of its own: padel tournaments, self-defence workshops, talks, theatre and initiatives that students themselves bring to life.
“Organising this alongside a full study load, with a team of fellow students, has honestly been one of the most valuable things we've done at La Confrérie. But what made it worth it isn't the experience. It's the goal behind it. Power & Pulse isn't something we're just promoting; it's something we believe in, for ourselves and for the people sitting next to us in that room,” says Aniek Cirkel, chairman of the board at La Confrérie.
That combination, Hotelschool The Hague creating the space, time and resources, and La Confrérie giving students real ownership of keeping mental health on the agenda within their own community, is what makes this collaboration distinctive.
More than one afternoon
Power & Pulse LIVE is one moment. Power & Pulse itself is what continues around it: sport, talks, workshops, theatre and conversations that carry on across the academic year, alongside continued attention to the social safety, prevention and support structures that make it possible for students to feel safe enough to be open in the first place.
By giving nearly its entire student population the time and space to explore that question together, Hotelschool The Hague is making a statement that goes beyond one event.
Power & Pulse LIVE was made possible in partnership with La Confrérie and World Forum The Hague, with support from the Municipality of The Hague.
