Meet Diederik de Jonge: he started at Intertrust Group four years ago on the Graduate Talent Programme and now works as a senior company lawyer in the Netherlands.

I’ve a diverse group of clients covering sectors from insurance and banks to oil and petroleum gas.  I manage the clients day-to-day challenges, tasks and situations together with my team of four other company lawyers. I really enjoy the challenge of developing innovative, customised assets for clients, for instance, debt, mortgages and car lease transactions.

Currently, we’re working to build an energy efficient mortgage hub, promoting green mortgages – which is funding that’s provided to buy greenhouses or improve greenhouses in the Netherlands. Our role is to enable capital market funds to flow through to these green channels.

My career by Intertrust Group started with the Graduate Talent Programme. The programme began with classes on subjects like company and corporate law, as well as soft skills like negotiation and presentation among others. We had frequent sessions with our coaches who provided mentorship and discussed individual progress and our long / short term goals. I look back on so many fun memories. One that stands out is us all trying to figure out what colour personality we had. It was so funny and useful to know how my colleagues like to work. At weekends, I used to regularly hang out with other trainees, and towards the end of the programme we had a brilliant graduation ceremony.

Once the programme finished, I became a full-time employee at Intertrust Group. It was an easy transition because I already had a good idea of what my work would look. And the warm, welcoming culture enables you to slot right into any team. As with the Graduate Talent Programme, there are so many young and like-minded people around you that they quickly become friends outside of work too.

I was promoted in Q4 2021 to Senior Lawyer, taking on a team management role and the opportunity to look out for, guide and support my junior colleagues. In this role, I’m now looking for business development opportunities with a view to attracting clients from different industries.

If you’re thinking of applying to this programme, I guarantee that you’ll find yourself learning about so many diverse sectors and domains. You can be a specialist or a generalist, because like a symphony there’s something for everyone.