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Remote (Belgium) – since 2022
Improving the Citizenlab product step by step with a pragmatic approach on product management, to allow governments to excel in citizen participation.
Remote (Belgium) – from 2021-2022
Joined an ambitious startup in social media that failed to get product-market fit. Met great people, but saw a lot of flawed ideas. It was fun, interesting and a real learning experience why you can’t keep building a product without any user or market validation.
Ghent (Belgium) – from 2019 to 2021
At Bothrs we like to work on though challenges, that need creative, ambitious solutions. Together with our customers, we design, validate, create, launch and iterate on digital solutions for B2C & B2B. To do that, we heavily rely on the power of a cross-functional team, short tracks of a few weeks and blueprinted sprints of one week. This helps us and our customers to validate ideas and solutions quickly. We trust in 'Getting started is more important than being right' and heavily apply validated learning.
As a product manager I was making sure my team of designers and engineers collaborates well with our customers and eventually ships successful products. To achieve that, I often: -align with stakeholders and challenge on assumptions or solutions, -gather information on the problems of the end-users through user interviews, market research & analytics, -co-create with teammates -and make sure everyone manages to deliver.
My technical background enables me to collaborate with engineers very closely and ideate on complex technical solutions or high-level solution architecture.
Customers I've been working for are Telenet, UCB, Biosil, Energylab, House of HR, Belfius, Proximus, DSV, Colruyt, Dreamland, ...
Ghent – from 2018 until 2019
Prompto is a product that helps Real Estate Developers sell and market their real estate by offering a virtual and personalised experience. At Prompto, I was responsible for the Product Management of the SaaS product, in all its facets, as the only Product Manager in the company (approx. 30 employees). This meant creating, communicating and adapting the roadmap/product strategy based on input of all stakeholders, which resulted in clear tasks and goals that add value for the user and are driven by the company strategy. Together with the whole team, we eventually launched the product and it evolved from a product for creators into a platform where potential customers can explore real estate. This helps real estate developers to sell with a better visual story. Prompto is built around the Unreal Engine, combined with web technologies and Cloud rendering. It was a great exercise in finding product-market fit and learning how to cope with multiple types of users (architects, real estate developers and potential buyers).
Ghent – from 2014 until 2018
I worked 4 years at Teamleader and was glad to be in the front seats of a fast growing start-up. I started as a developer and transitioned slowly to an aspiring Product Manger. During this period the company grew a lot, with multiple funding rounds, from Seed to Series C, an exploding customer base, from 200 to 5000, and an ever-growing team, from 10 to 200.
I started as the first developer where I experienced a lot of freedom in my role. I was involved in the roadmap, hiring and was a driving force in the continuing process of making the product better.
As Teamleader grew, I grew into a leading role where I first acted as VP of Engineering. My main challenges were the growth of the team and the company while enabling the process and product to handle this.
In 2016 I transitioned in the CTO role where my responsibilities shifted more to long term strategic goals. I always showed a lot of passion for the product and in this role I could help defining the future of Teamleader. I initiated projects for the further platform strategy with a new API and Integration Marketplace and kicked of the biggest technical overhaul of the product. This involved a lot of stakeholder management, workshops, presenting and advocating the future of the company.
In the absence of the VP of Product, I also filled in this position for a few months.
When I moved towards the product team I helped with Product Strategic questions and managed a team as Product Manager. In the long term Teamleader envisioned to be so much more than the SaaS tool they were in 2018. The roadmap for the coming years needed to be built on thorough research of the market, changing needs of users, new market potentials and backed with data, checked assumptions, internal and external feedback etc...
Therefore I helped the different teams in their process and challenges. In strategic projects, I toke the lead to built business cases and prototypes with a data-driven approach, to make decisions that are out-come driven, not feature focussed.
Antwerp (Belgium)– from 2011 until 2014
At Orca Solutions I've worked as developer, analyst and project manager in projects for customers in the banking, government and the private sector. The most important projects were:
Ghent - from 2006 until 2010
I started studying Computer Engineering, dropped out after two years because I had more joy in building my own web projects (or projects for friends & family) and worked for two years as a Web Developer at a small firm called Tidi Solutions (now part of Starring Jane). They gave me the chance to keep on learning, while working on real projects.