Meet our Advisor: Casper Jaspers
He’s worked with and for major organizations, he’s written a book and lectures a course, he’s advised startups and he’s been working on developing his own products. However, most important to us, he is iCastings legal advisor. All of our official documents and statements first go through him before anyone can see them publicly. Casper know exactly how to make a binding document legally sound.
While still living in his hometown near Utrecht, Casper finished high school and was very certain about the next step he was going to take. He was set on attending a Business Master Rotterdam University. However, he first felt a need to see more of the world.
Through a friend of his father he had connections to be employed in whatever part of the world he wanted. He eventually chose South-Africa and Thailand, leaving behind options like Mexico and Costa Rica. After he left the Netherlands for South-Africa, he worked as a summer camp guide accompanying children between the ages of 10 and 16. Even though he wasn’t much older than the eldest himself. This would be his employment for five months, after which he stepped on the next plane and travelled to Thailand to become a diving instructor. While there, Casper didn’t have all the qualifications for the job yet, so he quickly attained all the four necessary certifications (he already had the first two) and joined the diving school as an instructor. At the times he wasn’t giving lessons, he occupied himself as a rescue diver.
During this year he found what he set out to do in the first place: Something to break the monotony of school between high school and university and a way to become independent on his own. His return to the Netherlands was pretty easy going, however it took some getting used to. Instead of living out of a suitcase he suddenly had solid ground beneath his feet again and places to fall back to. He also found some differences with his peers who all seemed well off in contrast to those whom he had met the year before and a little less independent.
Studies
As planned, Casper started his Business Master at the University of Rotterdam. While he successfully closed off his first year, however, he found an interest in Law through his friends and decided to combine his studies with a Law Bachelor. This went pretty solid for a while, but Casper wasn’t all too certain about the Business major anymore. He found out his passions were in Law, because this would actually lead to a profession, while Business felt more aimless and decided to drop the latter all together. He went on to complete his Bachelors in Rotterdam, followed by a Masters in Corporate Law. Hereafter, at the age of 24, he decided that he didn’t want to start the work life just yet and stayed in university for one more year. This time for a Master in Private Law.
During his university years Casper was also an active member of the student rowing association in Rotterdam. During the rowing season from March till Juli there was a daily training routine, sometimes even twice a day. While most student occupied their free time with alcohol, Casper kept a disciplined alcohol-free diet to get the best possible performance in the waters. As a member of the association he also became president of the introduction period committee. Here he learned the value of surrounding yourself with qualified people with whom you get along, which is one of the keys to succes in his eyes.
Career
Caspers career started off in corporate law. For the first five years he worked with a lot of companies during mergers, acquisitions, fusions and general corporate litigation. In this time he also wrote a book with a coworker called Handboek Voorzitter or Chairman Manual in English. Together they interviewed about 40 chairman of the supervisory boards of companies like ING, Shell and Philips on their view of governance. After publication this warranted him a spot as guest lecturer at Nyenrode Business University for a course aimed at executives.
At the end of this period Casper figured he could either stay and become partner or he could start something else. While he definitely enjoyed his work at the firm, he didn’t see himself become a partner and stay just another piece of the puzzle. He wanted to be able to make quick, snappy decisions, something reserved mostly for small teams, and decided to become an interim lawyer to do so.
Since he’s made that decision, he has been working with a lot of startups and eventually also started advising ICOs. He’d been infatuated with blockchain ever since a friend introduced him to the technology in 2014, when this new kind of blockchain, that would possibly become the new Bitcoin, was going to be introduced, called Ethereum. Eventually, Casper started lecturing about blockchain — and other ‘new’ tech — too and decided to start writing a book about it, which is a work in progress.
In the future Casper will see himself advising more ICOs, though he does have some other projects coming to fruition. At the moment he is co-founder of two startup in which he has been working on product design and development. On of them is aimed at keeping mice away. The other, however, is something to keep a mystery for now, though he does say that it will be a simple product everyone could use.
Telegram: https://t.me/icasting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/icasting_nl
