Merlijn de Bakker

Senior Product Manager | At the intersection of commercial, tech & customer | Creative, people-driven & taking the lead | Energy & Sustainability

Ede, Gelderland, Netherlands

About

I’m passionate about making this world more sustainable. And convinced that we need products that are easy-to-use, financially beneficial ánd cool to achieve this. That's why I like working in the sustainable energy business: translating deep customer insights into product strategy, building business cases and bringing new propositions to market using customer journeys, prototyping and validation. I love to translate between tech & customer and bring a lot of enthusiasm and creativity with me.

Experience

  • Product Manager Site Design at Allego
    Jun 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 1 mo

    Developed a Handbook on how-to-design high quality Allego fast charging locations across Europe. Finding that sweet spot between strong customer experience, Allego identity and revenue maximization/cost optimizaion for every site. In this role I combine coaching of the regional teams in designing sites with boots-on-the-ground product management of roofs, signage and other products on site. Member of Allego Workers Council (Ondernemingsraad) since February '24, Chair since July '25.

  • Shell Recharge Solutions (Amsterdam)
    • Product Portfolio Manager
      Oct 2022 - Jun 2023 · 9 mos

      As Product Portfolio Manager I'm responsible for developing the right portfolio of charge point hardware, software and services for Operational Fleet customers. These customers have business-critical fleets that deliver goods & services, ranging from last mile delivery & heavy duty trucks to service vans & rental cars. Leading role throughout the proposition development process, from translating customer insights into product strategy and roadmaps to business case development, customer journeys, service design, prototyping, validating, go-to-market and growth. Single point of contact between the Fleet-Depot team and our Product organisation.

    • Proposition Manager Business
      Jul 2021 - Oct 2022 · 1 yr 4 mos

      Part of the Proposition team at NewMotion, responsible for developing propositions for Retail, Hospitality, Parking & Real Estate customers. Leading role throughout the proposition development process, from exploration of market opportunities and customer research to business case development, customer journey mapping, prototyping, validating, go-to-market and growth.

  • Proposition Manager Mobility Services & Roaming at NewMotion
    Oct 2019 - Jun 2021 · 1 yr 9 mos

    Part of the team responsible for the commercial activities, proposition management and product development of NewMotion's Driver- and Roaming Services, focusing on end-users, corporate and wholesale customers.

  • Energy Exchange Enablers (Arnhem)
    • Strategic Market Manager
      Mar 2019 - Sep 2019 · 7 mos

      At EXE I'm responsible for the strategic market plans of our products. I co-write our 5-year strategic business plans, including also international market strategies. I'm responsible for the budgets and operational execution of the market plans, and manager of our marketing and sales support department. My mission at EXE is to represent the voice of our customers and based on that, to continually develop and improve our products.

    • Commercial coordinator / Market Manager
      Aug 2016 - Feb 2019 · 2 yrs 7 mos

      At EXE I work out our strategic marketing plans and coordinate market research and sales activities. My mission at EXE is to represent the voice of our customers, using customer journeys and user experience research to continually optimise our three products.

  • Internship at Energy eXchange Enablers B.V. (onderdeel van Alliander N.V.)
    Sep 2015 - May 2016 · 9 mos

    During this internship I combined my master graduation research with activities at EXE (Energy Exchange Enablers). With my master research I explored the different types of partnerships between local energy cooperatives and energy companies in the Netherlands. I have in this way aimed to contribute to the growth of energy cooperatives to and create a better picture of the changing business models of energy companies in the Dutch energy transition.