Since the late 1980s, Marleen Deleu has built a distinguished career in HR services, evolving into a highly sought-after strategic expert on managing contingent talent and the future of work. After holding various roles across Randstad divisions in Belgium and the Netherlands, she shifted in 2014 to independent consulting, helping organizations craft visions and policies for their expanding external talent pools. For clients including VRT, Galapagos, Proximus, and others, she designed holistic HR strategies that seamlessly integrate permanent and contingent talent, aligning closely with today's labor market realities.

As co-founder and editor-in-chief of NextConomy since 2017, she closely tracks daily developments in the labor market, with a keen focus on emerging forms of collaboration, work models, and organizational structures. NextConomy serves as a hub to connect clients, intermediaries, policymakers, and individual workers, sparking vital debates on labor market transformations.

Marleen is co-author of ‘Mis geen talent’ (2020, Die Keure), the first Dutch-language book on integral or total talent management (TTM). She has also contributed to various market studies on MSP, VMS, and FMS solutions in the Benelux region. Through her publications and research, she equips organizations with practical tools to manage and strategically deploy permanent and contingent talent in an integrated way.

She is a frequent speaker at conferences and HR events, sharing insights on the rapid rise of highly skilled freelancers as ‘super temps’, technology's impact on work, and the imperative for integrated talent strategies. Through NextConomy, she organizes the annual, highly attended Total Workforce Summit, emphasizing knowledge sharing and networking on sustainable talent management. In her advisory role, she guides companies in developing future-proof hiring and talent models that balance agility with compliance.