Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
I build teams that can articulate what they’re making and why it matters, before they build. I write about design leadership, systems thinking, scaling design operations in high-growth companies, and the organizational capabilities that make technology fit people’s actual lives. 10+ years in design leadership. Most recently, Head of Design at Manychat, where I scaled the team 2.5x in 1 year while building research operations from scratch. Before that, six years at Mendix/Siemens, scaling design 8.5x from 5 to 43 people, establishing an evidence-based jobs-to-be-done framework across business units, and building a research panel of more than 1,000 respondents. My roots are in craft. I started at Bang & Olufsen's IdeaLab, where I learned that design is strategy, building prototypes alongside world-class designers and engineers to a high bar.
Led the product design team across Amsterdam and Barcelona with customer outcomes at the center. I introduced jobs-to-be-done and UX metrics to align experience, vision, and UX strategy to measurable outcomes across activation, retention, and monetization. Highlights: • Scaled the design organization from 8 → 20 FTE in 12 months, strengthening leadership capacity • Led a platform-wide UX audit that directly informed a redesign of the core navigation, content design conventions, and information architecture • Evaluated UX operations readiness for scale and introduced new capabilities across design management, research ops, UX research, and service design • Reduced time-to-hire from 120 days → 34.5 days and saved €150k+ through organic recruitment • Built research infrastructure from zero and authored a multi-year design vision with seven research-backed experience north star principles • Established a UX metrics-first, customer outcome-oriented UX practice and led cross-functional experience governance for growth, pricing, and monetization • Built leadership depth, strengthened design capabilities across AI product teams and design systems to improve quality, consistency, and cross-team alignment. • Enabled journey and research-led onboarding and pricing/monetization experimentation that drove high single-digit lifts in first-time success and double-digit gains in early repeat usage through a faster path to first value and stronger activation momentum.
Headed the design function for Mendix, a low-code platform, and a Siemens business, reaching $160 million in ARR and 20,000 active developers in 2024. The teams I built and led drove business growth, brand equity, and product differentiation through a coherent and engaging user experience. Highlights: • Team expansion and transformation: Scaled the Mendix R&D Design team from 5 to 43 FTE between 2018 and 2022 during a hyper-scale phase, incorporating product designers, service designers, and UX researchers. • Capability introduction and scaling: Introduced and matured critical functions such as Design Management & Operations, Service Design, and UX Research(Operations). • Evidence-based frameworks: Established and activated an evidence-based persona and journey framework across Mendix business units and product teams in collaboration with UX Research and Service Design Function leaders. • Research Operations: Introduced Research Operations, which maintains a pool of over 1,000 respondents, enabling continuous discovery and validation research with a mature self-service research toolkit for an R&D population of 468 people. • Diversity and inclusion: Built an inclusive design function, becoming a diversity leader in R&D with more than 20 nationalities and 55% women.
As Creative Director for Cognizant's Digital Business Design Innovation Studio in Amsterdam, I led cross-disciplinary teams to research, conceive, validate, and produce innovative experiences, products, and services. I was instrumental in scaling and maturing the studio's operations, cultivating a culture of creativity and collaboration with clients, stakeholders, subject matter experts, and people in the field. Highlights: •Team leadership: Directed a talented team of designers, strategists, and researchers, ensuring seamless collaboration and high-quality outputs. •Innovation viability: Managed the conception and validation of new digital experiences, guiding projects from initial idea to market-ready solutions. •Client engagement: Worked closely with global clients to understand their needs and deliver tailored solutions that drive business results.
As Co-founder and Designer at Topika, a strategic design consultancy, I collaborated with various partners to develop innovative products and services for companies, governments, non-profits, and cultural organizations. Our approach applied design thinking and co-creation to drive impactful solutions that meet diverse client needs. 2013 - 2015 - Interim Lead Product Designer at Skinvision, a medical service that empowers people to take a more active role in their skin’s health. Used by 2M+ people worldwide.
Co-organizing This happened - Amsterdam alongside Lotte Meijer and Paul Skinner. This Happened focuses on real-world interaction design and technology projects, emphasizing the learnings and failures rather than speculative ideas. Each event features up to 4 speakers, each presenting for 10 minutes followed by a Q&A session. Speakers discuss one project, whether in progress, a series of experiments, or a completed work. Presentations should narrate the project's evolution, starting from its inception and concluding with its current state, focusing on the process rather than just the outcome.