A value creation plan with a clock on it.
New ownership or a new CEO. The returns are modelled; what has to change is how the company executes.
Transformation partners · Amsterdam · Working globally
Transformation doesn't happen to an organisation. It happens through its leaders.
We partner with senior leaders in PE-backed portfolio companies, Tech and R&D organisations to turn strategic ambition into lasting change: how leadership decides, how the organisation operates, and how teams work. In practice that usually comes down to two moves: from sales-led to product-led, and from gut to evidence. Hands-on, in the room, alongside you.
The problem
You probably don't have a strategy problem.
You have a translation problem.
The strategy is clear. The transformation programme is funded. The roadmap exists. The organisation has the tools, processes, OKRs and agile teams.
And yet the organisation keeps behaving the same way.
What you already have
A clear strategy and a funded value creation plan
A roadmap and a platform
Tools, OKRs and agile teams
Leaders who agree in the room
the gap
What still happens
The roadmap belongs to whoever shouted last
Analysis gets challenged; the bet gets made anyway
Leaders agree, then revert
The same conversation six months later
The situations we're usually called into
Sales-led, meant to become product-led.
Every large customer promise becomes a priority. Teams deliver a list instead of pursuing an outcome.
Scale that created overhead, not leverage.
Countries, brands or acquisitions on a shared platform. Coordination costs more than the synergy.
A transformation that already ran once.
Rituals running, titles given, OKRs everywhere. The decision-making hasn't moved.
Our thesis
The real unit of transformation is leadership behaviour.
Most programmes intervene at the top two layers, because those are the easiest to buy and the easiest to show. If leadership keeps deciding the old way, and the old way keeps getting rewarded, the organisation follows.
When transformation doesn't stick, go one layer deeper.
Don't add a tool when the problem is the process. Don't redesign the process when the problem is decision rights. Don't train people when the leadership system still rewards the old behaviour. Sales-led to product-led is a decision-rights change first and a process change second. The pyramid says where to start; the diagnosis says where it binds in your company.
What we do
We work with the leader and the system.
Not executive coaching on one side. Not transformation consulting on the other. We combine the two.
01
Challenge the leadership
We work with you and your leadership team on the decisions that actually matter: strategy, priorities, trade-offs, decision rights and the conversations nobody else in the room is willing to have.
02
Change the operating system
We turn leadership intent into mechanisms that shape behaviour: structure, incentives, metrics, cadence, resource allocation and ways of working.
03
Work alongside the organisation
We don't disappear into a boardroom and return with recommendations. We work inside the organisation with leadership, product, engineering, R&D and the people doing the work.
04
Make it yours
The goal isn't dependence on us. We build the new rhythm with your people, then progressively step back.
The difference
A transformation partner is not a consultant. And not just a coach.
Coach, operator and challenger in one role. No bench of juniors billing under us, and no framework to sell.
Consultant
Tells you what to do. Useful when the problem is knowledge. Transformation rarely fails for lack of an answer.
Executive coach
Changes one leader. Powerful, but the system around them keeps producing the same behaviour.
Interim leader
Takes the function. Closes an execution gap, then becomes another dependency.
Transformation partner
Changes the system itself. We challenge, coach and operate, then make sure the organisation runs differently without us.
Recognition
You might recognise yourself here.
“I'm becoming the bottleneck.”
Too many decisions still come to the top. You want empowered leaders, but you're still making the important calls.
“Everyone agrees, then nothing changes.”
The leadership team is aligned in meetings. Then everyone goes back to their old priorities.
“We've transformed the teams. Not the organisation.”
Agile rituals are running. Product managers have titles. OKRs are everywhere. The underlying decision-making hasn't changed.
“The plan says product-led. Sales still runs the roadmap.”
Every big customer promise becomes a priority. The team never gets to pursue an outcome, only to deliver a list.
“We have the data. It never changes a decision.”
Dashboards everywhere, analysis challenged on method, big bets still made on conviction. The data team has become an audit function.
“We've done this before.”
Another transformation programme. Another roadmap. Another kick-off. Eventually everything went back to normal.
What we focus on
Decision quality is not outcome quality.
A good decision can produce a bad outcome. A bad decision can get lucky. Transformation requires leaders to become better at distinguishing the two.
“Gut writes the hypothesis. Evidence sizes the bet.”
We never ask a leader to stop trusting their instinct. We ask for their prediction before the data is shown, so instinct gets credit when it is right and the miss is cheap when it is wrong. Leaders have to tell the two apart.
01
From
Opinion to Hypothesis
02
From
Confidence to Evidence
03
From
Debate to Experiment
04
From
Outcome to Learning
05
From
Escalation to Decision rights
What changes
The measure of transformation isn't activity. It's what becomes different.
Fewer decisions escalate to the CEO
Leadership teams make more decisions without waiting for permission.
Resources move when evidence changes
Strategy becomes visible in actual resource allocation.
Teams own outcomes
People solve problems rather than simply delivering outputs.
Learning cycles get shorter
The organisation finds out sooner what to stop, continue or scale.
Leadership conversations get more honest
Disagreement becomes useful rather than political.
Transformation survives us
The organisation owns the rhythm instead of depending on the partner.
Our work
We've been inside organisations where transformation actually has consequences.
CarNext PE-backed
Product Transformation Lead
The problem. Leadership wanted an empowered product organisation; the company was still steered centrally.
What we did. Worked with the CTO, CPO, Head of Engineering and CHRO to move product and engineering to a product-led operating model: strategy, team topology, decision-making and leadership behaviour together.
HeadFirst Group PE-backed
Global Head of Product Management
The problem. Scale across the UK, North America and APAC was creating coordination overhead rather than leverage.
What we did. Redesigned and executed a new AI product strategy, roadmap, quarterly OKR cadence and team topology, resulting in successfully scaling the Dutch platform globally.
CSL
Agile Coach & Leadership Advisor, R&D
The problem. Long development horizons and complex dependencies made conventional planning a constraint.
What we did. Designed and tested a new agile R&D way of working across the US, Europe and Australia, from lab automation to early clinical trials, and supported the sa-mRNA COVID vaccine programme.
Albert Heijn
Product Transformation Lead, Store Innovations
The problem. Launch strategic store innovations to help grow the Albert Heijn business.
What we did. We successfully shipped new store innovations like WINK in 1000+ AH stores and set up the technical integration and rollout for the 100+ AH To Go's in BP Tankstations in The Netherlands.
CSLAEGONCarNextHeadFirstAlbert HeijnABN AMRORabobankRandstadSchiphol
Private-equity-backed engagements include CarNext, HeadFirst-Impellam, Login VSI and Usabilla.
Recommendations from CTOs, CPOs and R&D leaders we've worked with are on LinkedIn. Named references are available on request.
Who we are
A team of transformation partners.
Different backgrounds. Same obsession.
Timo Mulder
Transformation Partner · Product · Technology · R&D
14 years working inside product, engineering and R&D organisations across biopharma, technology, retail, fintech and SaaS.
His strength: seeing where strategy, product, technology and organisational design collide.
Kees van Nunen
Transformation Partner · Leadership · Innovation · Organisation
300+ teams coached across corporate innovation, product and marketing, working with senior leaders on strategy, structure, leadership and momentum.
His strength: helping leaders change the system around them, not just themselves.
Edouard Dopper
Transformation Partner · Product · Engineering · Platforms
Product and engineering leader with experience in running engineering teams as Director of Engineering and Director of Platform, scaling platforms globally across the US, UK, EU and APAC.
His strength: turning a leadership decision into a shipped platform, and knowing where engineering reality will push back on the plan before the plan does.
How we engage
It doesn't need to start with a 12-month commitment.
Start with the problem and earn the right to go deeper. If the diagnosis finds nothing worth doing together, you keep the diagnosis and we stop there. Across a portfolio we diagnose in parallel, go deep in one or two lighthouses, and build with your people and the operating team so the model spreads without us in every room.
2 to 4 weeks
Transformation Diagnosis
Understand what is actually preventing change from sticking.
- Leadership behaviour
- Decision-making
- Operating model
- Team behaviour
- Incentives & metrics
You get Which layer is holding the change back, where evidence currently enters a decision and where it doesn't, and where to intervene first. Fixed fee, agreed before we start.
3 to 6 months
Transformation Partnership
Work alongside the leadership team to change the system.
- Coach
- Challenge
- Operate
- Change
- Measure
You get By day 90, in the lighthouse: decision rights agreed and in use, the roadmap set by outcome rather than by the last customer call, and the first decisions changed by evidence on record.
6 to 12+ months, only when needed
Institutionalise
Build internal capability and make the new operating rhythm self-sustaining.
- Transfer capability
- Embed the model
- Build ownership
- Step back
You get Transfer capability, embed the model in incentives and rituals, build ownership, step back. A transformation that continues after we leave.
Where AI sits: the proving ground.
AI is in the value creation plan, and it usually is. We treat it as the first place to prove the discipline rather than as a separate workstream. A measured saving earns the right to bring evidence into the harder decisions.
A baseline the CFO accepts.
Agreed before anything is built, not reconstructed afterwards.
A holdout.
So the impact can be attributed rather than claimed.
Augmentation, not automation.
The second word stops adoption inside the company before it starts.
Our point of view
Some things we believe strongly.
Empowerment without decision rights is theatre.
Most delivery problems are leadership problems two levels up.
Small batches beat big plans.
Make the real work visible.
Transformation must survive the people who started it.
Gut writes the hypothesis. Evidence sizes the bet.
Let's talk
Something needs to change.
But you're not sure what's actually holding it back.
Let's figure it out. No pitch. No transformation deck. Just a conversation about what's happening inside your organisation, and whether we can help.