Michel Maas studied Philosophy at University of Amsterdam and became a Clingendael Research Associate in July 2020.
Michel has been a foreign correspondent for Dutch national media for over 23 years. From 2001 until 2019 he was based in Indonesia. From there he has been covering events in Southeast Asia for both newspaper De Volkskrant and broadcaster NOS. That made him a well known face on television, and a respected analyst on Indonesian and SE Asian affairs. His career in journalism spans over four decades, half of which he spent abroad – starting as a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe in 1996, based in Budapest.
In 2019 he left Jakarta for The Netherlands, where he went back to work at newspaper De Volkskrant as an editor and a reporter. As of august 1st 2020 he works for his own company – Michel Maas Media & Foreign Affairs – as an independent expert on media and on SE Asian affairs.
Michel Maas is also a writer of fiction and non-fiction. He published two novels and a compilation of his award-winning reports on the Kosovo war.
