Leadership & track record
I have spent most of my career in organisations where technology is not separate from operations.
From building Knab and IT operations at NIBC to hospital IT at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a data and AI company and eventually the management board of HappyNurse.
The common thread is actually quite simple: building teams, improving technology and taking responsibility for what happens in practice afterwards.
CTO and management board member, HappyNurse
Responsible for technology, data, AI and information security. At HappyNurse, technology is part of the core operation: from finding and onboarding healthcare professionals to scheduling, service delivery and invoicing.
My role therefore runs from technology strategy and investment decisions to product development, security, vendors and the development of the teams themselves.
Aisha
AI that actually takes over work
Aisha did not start as a request to “do something with AI”. The problem was much more practical: how do we make recruitment and onboarding faster, without every step remaining manual work?
So we built an AI agent that holds conversations with candidates via WhatsApp and HappyOne and carries out parts of the recruitment and onboarding process. Today around 80% of the recruitment process runs through Aisha.
Technically, that was only part of the challenge. Once AI independently carries out parts of a core process, you get different questions. Which decisions may the system take? When does a human take over? How do we record what happens? And how do we deal with privacy, information security and new regulation?
That is exactly the part I find interesting. Putting AI into production is relatively easy. Taking real responsibility for it as an organisation is harder.
My role
From the first business case and technical direction to integration into our organisation, governance and further development. Together with the team, because you do not build systems like this on your own.
HappyOne
Our own platform for operations
HappyOne is the in-house platform on which a large part of HappyNurse’s operations runs. Healthcare professionals find and plan shifts, clients get insight into their staffing, and internally the platform supports processes from scheduling to administration.
My responsibility is not just the product itself. I lead the teams and partners around it, make the roadmap and architecture choices together with the organisation, and am responsible for how it fits with data, security and the rest of the IT landscape.
At least as important is how we build software: more ownership in teams, CI/CD, test automation and structural monitoring.
What I learned
Your own platform gives you a lot of freedom, but only if you are also willing to take responsibility for everything around it. From technical debt and security to adoption and the sometimes difficult choice not to build something.
From IT projects to a technology organisation
A large part of leading technology is barely visible from the outside. The challenge is not only in the technology itself, but also in how you organise it. Development, data, operations, vendors and the business have to work as one system.
That is what we are building at HappyNurse, step by step: clearer ownership, product and platform thinking, automated testing and releasing, a central data platform and structural attention to information security and AI governance.
A change like that never goes right in one go, and almost always takes longer than you expect. To me, that is part of leading technology.
Writing down the strategy is usually not the hardest part. Getting an organisation to the point where the new normal really is normal, is.
The common thread
- 2011 – 2016BUILD
Knab
Involved from the early stages in building one of the first fully digital banks in the Netherlands. Started in processes, later responsible for an IT team and the operational side of the platform.
This is where I learned how to build something while the organisation itself is still taking shape.
- 2016 – 2019TRANSFORM
Quint & NIBC
At Quint I helped organisations with Agile, Lean, DevOps and technological change. At NIBC I then became responsible for an IT operations team myself again.
Advising and being responsible for the result yourself turn out to be two quite different things.
- 2019 – 2023RUN & GROW
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek & Intellify
At the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek I led IT infrastructure in an environment where continuity directly affects patient care. At the same time I led a data and AI practice at Intellify with commercial responsibility.
That is where technology increasingly came together with people, clients and running a business.
- 2023 – nowLEAD
HappyNurse
As CTO and management board member, responsible for technology, data, AI and information security.
This is where the earlier chapters come together: building, changing, running a business and ultimately executive responsibility.
How I lead
Give direction, not every answer
I want people to understand where we are going and why. After that there has to be room to find better answers than the ones I had thought of in advance.
Ownership as low as possible
If every important decision has to go past the CTO, you have not built a strong technology team. Teams must be able to decide, release and learn on their own. My job is mostly to make the boundaries for that clear.
Technology starts with a problem
I love new technology, but that is no reason to use it. An investment should ultimately improve something for a customer, an employee or the organisation. Otherwise, not building is often a perfectly good option.
Say so when something does not work
Not every experiment succeeds. Not every architecture choice turns out to be wise, and not every AI model delivers enough. I would rather we are honest about that early than spend months defending an earlier decision.
People are not an implementation detail
You can choose excellent technology and still deliver a worthless change. In the end people have to work with it, take responsibility and dare to trust it.
Experience
- HappyNurseCTO and management board member2023 – present
- IntellifyFounder & Managing Director, Data & AI2019 – 2023
- Antoni van LeeuwenhoekIT Manager Infrastructure & Datacenter a.i.2019 – 2022
- NIBC BankAssociate Director IT (Operations)2017 – 2019
- Quint Wellington RedwoodSenior Consultant Digital Transformation2016 – 2019
- Antoni van LeeuwenhoekChange Manager a.i.2016 – 2018
- KnabBusiness Process Manager, then Manager ICT Skilled Helpdesk2011 – 2016
Outside my day job
- Advisory Board, CIONET NetherlandsSince 2024
- Expert jury, Recruitment Tech AwardsSince 2024
I also speak and write about AI, technology leadership and the impact of AI on work.