As the Marketing Director for Assent in EMEA, reporting to the CMO, I got the chance to successfully build a marketing capacity in that region from scratch. Starting from a situation where there were only corporate campaigns running in Europe, I built a team of professionals with whom I established a huge increase in top-of-funnel engagement, and brought a significant growth in inbound pipeline. Driving adaptation to corporate campaigns to bring a cultural fit to the region, as well as delivering campaigns in-language. Even developing and delivering campaigns that are tailor-made for the region. Daily conversations between the marketing team and the sales teams provide a continuous alignment between Assent's go-to-market and customer demand.

Marketing directly to customers, as well as working with the channel to generate demand. Offline as well as online, the latter having gotten a major boost by Covid kicking in. Management of online and offline (channel) events, digital and social campaigns (incl. channel), Content and asset creation, channel and agency management, budget management and forecasting.

As a Segment Marketing Communications manager, I was responsible for developing effective marketing communication strategy supporting the Rail, Marine and Distributed Energy Management segments in EMEA. This includes lead development and implementation of marketing communication campaigns, while partnering with external agencies, and identifying and leading the organization of key industry events that support business growth in the segment, by reaching 'hard to reach' decision makers. It is strategic development, content creation, campaign implementation, event management coordination, trade association membership coordination and back-end tracking (Eloqua) all under one umbrella.

As the leader of strategic marketing programs, I have been taking care of projects that are of strategic importance for ES’ EMEA marketing and are interrelated, but do not fall into a specific geographical area or have a relation with a single account or industry. Examples include: organizing HP’s CIO Summit in Barcelona from a content perspective, starting and leading other CxO level activities (involvement in IDC’s CIO Summit, Business Value Exchange Academy) and revving up the EMEA references program, with a need to better acquire and nurture HP ES’ references. All is focused on telling a business value story with boardroom significance (executive level content creation!) rather than telling a traditional technology story. The job also includes investigating how to get greater ROI from team collaboration.

I led the support to the sales-community with marketing and communication activities and was an advisor of the national and regional management teams. Overall responsibility for all marketing and communication activities on a local level. Being part of a virtual team with colleagues in Belgium and the Nordic countries, to ensure a leveraged regional approach. Taking care of the strategic marketing plan on a local level, in line with the regional and corporate marketing planning as well as business planning, and ensuring the implementation and execution of this plan. End-responsibility for all PR-activities (press releases, press interviews, spokesmanship, website maintenance, press travel, clippings-analysis, including delegation to agencies) and analyst relations, providing visibility for EDS and its local executives. Coordinating the creation of sales tools (client cases, collateral, websites (via Content Management Systems) etcetera) and the organization of participation in (international) events. Responsible for all internal communications (incl. intranet).* On 26 August 2008, EDS was acquired by Hewlett Packard (HP) and was rebranded to “EDS, an HP company”. Integration communications around rebranding, workforce reductions and the integration process, management of change, as well as an advisory role to the Dutch and regional integration management teams were included in my area of responsibility.

I assisted the marketing communications manager in the Netherlands to support the sales-community with marketing-activities. Responsibilities include: organizing EDS’s participation in events, sponsorships and corporate hospitality events. Providing the regional sales-community with market information for strategic guidance. Coordinating internal communications (intranet, email newsletters), on both local and international level. Assisting the marketing communications manager in PR-activities.

I supported the marketing manager in her executive activities and supporting the sales-community in their pursuits. Responsibilities include: coordinating the manufacturing and maintenance of different media, like external newsletters (hardcopy and email newsletters), internet and intranet. Guarding the house style. Organizing APC’s participation in international events (for example TMAB in Brussels) and corporate hospitality events (for example sponsorship of a motor sport team). Mainly hands-on marketing with much cooperation with graphical bureaus, external suppliers and PR-agencies.

I was involved in communicating future culture-changes as a result of a change in company business processes. Responsibilities: be the advisor of the project management, develop and maintain several media (internal and external websites, newsletters, databases), organize events, internal communications and guard the house-style.