Laura van Geest: 'Looking Away Is Never Neutral'

Symposium: The Guardians of Reality | March 20, 2026 1 SPEECH The Small Discomfort: Why Looking Away Is Never Neutral Symposium: The Guardians of Reality: Trust and Integrity as the Foundation Laura van Geest (CEO of the AFM) Ladies and gentlemen, Maarten, Trust and integrity, today's topics. They may not be the subjects people spontaneously buy tickets for. But regardless of how you look at it, they do form the foundational layer beneath everything we do in our sectors. Let me be honest right away: today we make decisions in an era of hardening. An era where the conversation outside grows louder, while the conversation inside - in the boardroom - often grows softer. We speak more cautiously. We phrase things more roundly. We preserve the peace. Until that peace suddenly turns out to be covering something up. And that is what I want to talk to you about today: looking away. Not as an accusation. Not as pointing fingers. But as a human phenomenon, because I see it everywhere: among supervisors, among boards, among commissioners, and now and then even in myself. Looking away is not a character flaw. It is a reflex. But - and that is the core of my argument today - looking away is never neutral. Even not looking is a choice. And sometimes the most expensive one. How am I so sure of that? I could of course say that my gut tells me so. Sounds a bit more 'CEO-like'. But sometimes insights also come at embarrassing moments. [pause] I see from your faces that you recognize this. My moment, late at night… Low resistance, brains on standby, and so I ended up watching Bridgerton. Indeed, that series with gowns, drama, romance, string players… and a Regency England that historically is completely inaccurate. But narratively, it works fantastically. Because the creators do something very interesting: they choose a lens. They do not change the facts, but the representation (for non-viewers: color). And that choice determines which reality you see.

Symposium: The Guardians of Reality | March 20, 2026 2 In the boardroom, we do exactly that. No gowns, yes dashboards. No string players, yes spreadsheets. But always that same question: What do we show? What do we leave out? What do we leave in silence/unspoken? In governance, neutrality is rarely neutral. It is steering. And sometimes it is looking away. I see that in three forms. Three patterns. Three ways in which tension is not voiced, but is nevertheless present. All three human, recognizable. And fortunately, also solvable. The first form: Looking away by calling it something other than what it is I sometimes call this the friendly numbness of proper language This is the most elegant form of looking away. We change nothing about reality, but we do change the words we use to describe it. In the financial sector, you will certainly recognize them: • a risk is called a point of attention • recurring problems become minor incidents • structural signals become operational noise • and something that makes us uncomfortable is called complex Language is a beautiful instrument. But as said, it can have a numbing effect. The rounder the words, the less urgency people feel. I see this often in files on ESG strategy. An institution that was crystal clear for years about its sustainability ambitions suddenly starts talking in terms like “balanced”, “market aligned”, “efficiency gains”. The work doesn't even shift that much. Choices are obscured. New code words emerge, to keep the diverse stakeholders happy. Or in integrity reports: a pattern of near misses is described as “a data quality issue”. The danger is simple: In fog, you can hold meetings just fine, but you can hardly steer. What helps? Very simple: linguistic discipline. If you notice that words mainly dampen the tension, it is time to bring them back to their plain, honest form. Because if the words are sharp, the conversation usually becomes sharp too. The external packaging is a later concern. Then the second form: Looking away by tolerating what actually grates In short: The soft friction we temporarily set aside

Symposium: The Guardians of Reality | March 20, 2026 3 This is the form everyone knows. You see something. You feel something. You think: Hmm. And you do… nothing. Not now. Later. After the quarter. After the audit. After the summer. It feels sensible. Even calming. But risks do not like to wait. They grow in silence. In the financial sector, I see it around transaction monitoring against money laundering. We know the model is creaking and groaning: that it contains bias, that the hit rate is low, that legitimate customers get too often stuck. Everyone feels it. But as long as the system does not completely break down, it is accepted. We'll just look at it for a bit longer. Until the file is no longer an “optimization issue” but a reputation incident – and then everyone has to go back to the drawing board. The same thing regularly happens with cyber risks. There are “near misses”, small reports, deviations that keep recurring. All explainable. But together they form a pattern. And as long as no one voices that pattern out loud, tolerance is the de facto policy. Behavioral science calls this “bystander complicity”: not one mistake, but fifteen missed moments where someone could have said: “I think something is off here.” And something else: research shows that those who do speak up sometimes pay a social price. In terms of less appreciation, less influence, less informal involvement. That is why it often remains quiet. In the context of #hoedan, here are a few solutions: A simple premortem (“suppose this goes wrong in a year – why?”). A pre-agreed trigger (“if X happens, we automatically open this file”). Two escalation routes (in the line and alongside it). So that no one has to wait for someone else to become brave. Then my final point: Looking away by not mentioning the topic at all This form is the quietest. And the most expensive. It revolves around topics that everyone feels but no one puts on the agenda. Not because it is forbidden. But because everyone intuitively knows: If I open this can of worms now, I will spend the rest of the meeting smoothing things over.

Symposium: The Guardians of Reality | March 20, 2026 4 In the financial sector, you see this with: • friction at the top (CEO–CRO, CFO–CIO): everyone feels it, no one says it • sanction risks: commercially sensitive, reputation-sensitive, so “not ripe yet” • important culture themes: we feel something is shifting, but it stays outside the room Suppressed topics never disappear in a drawer. They disappear into the culture. And there they grow larger, stickier, and more expensive. What we do not name today, we pay back tomorrow. Not because someone did something wrong, but because no one dared to say it. Or: because the context made it unsafe. And that last point is crucial: research by one of my colleagues shows that commissioners who are critical toward a CEO in some boards lose status, are excluded from informal alignment, or are taken less seriously. But in safe boards, this does not happen. There, criticism is even seen as expertise. The atmosphere therefore determines whether dissent leads to risk or to quality. Now then, the question: what does this ask of a Chair? Let me start with what it does not ask. It does not ask for superheroics. No sword. No cape. It asks for craftsmanship. A chair is in fact a kind of director. Steering space, tempo, language, and safety. Let me make that concrete. A good chair speaks late in the meeting. Not because he or she is modest, but because speaking late creates space. If you speak first, the rest will interpret. If you speak last, the rest will think. The difference is gigantic. A good chair normalizes doubt. Doubt is not noise; doubt is information. Doubt is the board's early warning system. One sentence can unload an entire room: “I don't see it yet – who sees what I don't see?” My go-to question is In case of stupid questions: …. A good chair separates exploration from decision-making. Because if no one knows which phase you are in, you get conversations where a first thought already feels like the definitive path. Exploration requires lightness. Decisions require sharpness. And if you do not name that, you get a hybrid that no one understands – and with which everyone can later argue. A good chair organizes dissent. Not by saying: “Be critical.”

Symposium: The Guardians of Reality | March 20, 2026 5 That only works for people who were already critical anyway. No: by giving someone the role. Today, Piet is the contrarian. Tomorrow, Maria. As a result, dissent is no longer a character trait, but a function. And functions are socially much safer. A good chair makes mistakes discussable without drama. By pre-agreeing on thresholds that you automatically return to. Then no one has to concede anything. Then the agreement speaks for you. A good chair monitors the rhythm. Sensitive topics do not belong in the round-up, but at the front of the agenda. Where there is time. Where there is nuance. Where people still have energy. And finally – perhaps the most important – a good chair monitors psychological safety. Because research by Mostert shows: the consequences of criticism depend entirely on the atmosphere in the board. In a safe board, the status of critical voices remains intact. In an unsafe board, they are punished. And that difference determines the quality of supervision. A chair who gives people the feeling that they may say something, without their position suffering for it, is worth its weight in gold. Not because it is nice, but because it yields good decisions. Ladies and gentlemen, We are almost done. That evening on the couch, watching Bridgerton, was not a cultural revelation. But I saw something I constantly see in the boardroom: the lens determines reality. The creators did not change the script. They changed the representation. And with that, the story changed. Today I have tried to show that it is exactly the same in our boardrooms. The words we choose make a difference. The silences we let fall make a difference. The choices we do not name make a difference. That is why I end with the question you can use tomorrow exactly like this in your own meeting: “What small discomfort do we choose today to prevent the big discomfort tomorrow?” Thank you.