The Randstad, Netherlands
I am an engineer so I help build products and companies. I care about customers and users. And I like being part of a team, building teams and mentoring and coaching individuals. As Chief Product Officer at AIMMS I am in charge of the product vision and strategy. I have been in SaaS start-ups and scale-ups since 2000, leading product development and service delivery. Prior to that I spent 3 years at a high-tech consultancy company in Cambridge UK and 10 years at Unilever in research and innovation roles. I hold a masters degree Mechanical Engineering from Delft University, majoring in system dynamics and advanced control system. I am a certified coach.
In charge of product development and innovation, of our SaaS cloud platform, of information security and of IT.
A wonderful period of about four months where I met lots of people, discovered and explored companies, technologies, connections, inspirations, books, etc., did project management and consultancy assignments and found my 'dream job' as COO at AIMMS.
Adnovate is a leading innovator in marketing automation, with an international customer base to be proud of. Adnovate connects to its user-community, marketers, with a mix of technology and people to help them achieve results quickly. We founded the company at the end of 2000 and so far peaked at about 90 people. For 12 years I was COO, responsible for development and delivery of the software and professional services. I helped to develop the organisation and many people therein, digest two acquisitions and, unfortunately, several lay-off rounds. I helped to define the product and technology strategy. We developed a SaaS / Cloud delivery model with Continuous Deployment long before those terms emerged. At Adnovate I learned a lot (more) about IT, software, service-excellence, process-improvement, marketing, team-development, management, etcetera. Twelve wonderful years that brought me a lot and allowed me to work with many wonderful people. The best bits were the opportunity to build a company-culture ground-up and the periods in which I was really focused on product development. During my Adnovate years I acquired my Insights Discovery accreditation in 2008 and subsequently I gave internal team workshops and individual coaching sessions. This was augmented in 2012 by completing the MMS Coach Training, which again led to coaching work inside the company. I found those skills to be of great help in leading teams and departments.
Since then sold, DiverseyLever was the Unilever business unit for professional cleaning products. As Global Innovation Leader Service I lead design, development and field-testing of a concept for A-branded home cleaning services. It was subsequently successfully implemented in the UK. I lead the development of a technology-enabled optimisation service for professional dishwashing, leading an international team based in The Netherlands, Toronto and San Francisco. I set up DiverseyLever’s first intranet development and content management team. I helped develop DiverseyLever’s first internet presence. In this job I especially loved leading the teams and improving the design and development of the services until we got every part ‘right’. I learned about equipment development, service (excellence), brand design and communication, professional sales and customer relations and about on-line communications.
The key to an ‘assistant to a director’ job is to add value above the mundane tasks by offering critical and original thought and be an extra set of ‘ears and eyes’ of the director. In addition I had the opportunity to be part of the team that ‘disconnected’ the Specialty Chemicals division from Unilever when it was sold in 1997 for US$8bn to ICI. With 16.000 people, over 100 facilities around the world, endless patent portfolios, supply agreements and shared facilities and real-estate that was a complex operation. Working with a very inspiring director and participating in an amazing team are life-long memories. This job taught me about the power of amazing teamwork, about the workings of a global corporation and about communication in its widest sense.
Working in the process / manufacturing area I was team-leader for various projects on food processing, detergent manufacturing, yeast production, etc. We developed computer simulations and advanced measurement and control systems for these processes. I learned about modelling, process control (software) and various manufacturing processes for daily products. Highlights were design and development of a super-accurate food-processing test rig and design and development of a detergent powder-flowability sensor.