Willem van Lynden — entrepreneur and board member

Willem van Lynden (W.C.E. baron van Lynden, Rotterdam 1985) is an entrepreneur and board member, specialised in online reputation and privacy. He attended the Erasmiaans Gymnasium in Rotterdam, studied economics at Utrecht University and obtained his master's degree in International Economics cum laude at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2012 he founded MediaMaze in Amsterdam, based on a simple conviction: a good reputation has been a prerequisite for success for centuries, and that reputation is increasingly determined online.

What started with the removal of unjustified search results grew into a full-fledged practice combining legal expertise, editorial strength and data-driven monitoring. Van Lynden has more than 500 right-to-be-forgotten cases to his name, with a success rate of over 90%. Every week he files requests with data processors such as search engines (for both search results and reviews), LLMs and business directories. Where necessary he submits mediation requests to the Dutch Data Protection Authority and litigates against parties such as Google over search results.

Alongside MediaMaze he built Reptor, a platform for continuous reputation monitoring, and founded comparison platform Ynvest Finance, from which bond fund Ynvest Fund emerged. As a board member of the Stop Online Shaming Foundation he advocates for victims of online shaming. He is a frequently consulted expert on online reputation, privacy and AI on television, radio and in the press.