Richenel is a cultural anthropologist, healer, transformational guide and heritage expert. He has held several key leadership positions in Curaçao and in the USA in the areas of culture, the humanities and alternative medicine, including as director of Culture and the National Archaeological and Anthropological museum in Curaçao, as well as the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and the Global Medicine Education Foundation, both in North Carolina. While his interests are broad ranging he is always interested in how we are shaped by stories in deep ways, especially in colonial, postcolonial and neocolonial societies.