Fons studied Economics at the Free University of Amsterdam and later earned a Ph.D. from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on differences in conceptions of organizational structure in various cultures. He experienced cultural differences firsthand at home, where he grew up speaking both French and Dutch, and then later at work, with Shell in nine countries.

Fons entered Shell in 1981 and moved into the Personnel Division for Shell in Rotterdam. From 1985, he worked in job classification and management development at the Shell Research Laboratories in Amsterdam. In 1989 he founded the Centre for International Business Studies, a consulting and training organization for international management. Since 1998 we operate as Trompenaars Hampden-Turner.

Fons Trompenaars has worked as a consultant for Shell, BP, ICI, Philips, Heineken, TRW, Mars, Motorola, General Motors, Nike, Cable and Wireless, CSM and Merrill Lynch.

Fons Trompenaars wrote Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. This book sold over 120,000 copies and was translated into French, German, Dutch, Korean, Danish, Turkish, Chinese, Hungarian and Portuguese. He is co-author of Seven Cultures of Capitalism , Building Cross-Cultural Competence and 21 Leaders for the 21st Century with Charles Hampden-Turner.

In 1991 Fons was awarded the International Professional Practice Area Research Award by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). He was mentioned as one of the top 5 management consultants, next to Michael Porter, Tom Peters and Edward de Bono in a leading Business magazine in August 1999.

In 1994 the translation of his book Riding the Waves of Culture was awarded "Book of the Year" by the Order of Experts and Consultants on Organization (OOA), a Dutch management organization.