Intervju med Niels de Groot
Program: Master's Program in Management
Start of education: H09
Title: Team Manager Account Development
Nationality
Dutch
Current employer
Awin. It is a global affiliate network with 15 offices worldwide, 900 employees, 100,000 contributing publishers and 6,000 advertisers. Awin connects customers with brands in over 180 countries around the globe operating across the retail, telecommunications, travel and finance verticals.
A few words about your career and your current tasks and responsibilities:
I got to know Awin via my first employer, Freespee (a Swedish SaaS provider which at the time was a startup) and joined the Global Publisher Team as Global Business Development Manager in 2014.
A job with a lot of variety. My core focus was to identify and attract innovative and new business models, supporting and coordinating with local publisher teams on upselling innovative and non-standard business opportunities to key clients as well as acting as the point of contact to the central departments and supporting in rolling out initiatives and projects relevant to publisher management.
After roughly two years into the role, I got the opportunity to join our Benelux office in Amsterdam as team leader for the Account Development team. The team started with 6 account managers and two support staff and has grown into a team of 16 today.
My daily tasks are focused on the execution of our team strategy and tactics, management and mentorship of the account managers with the purpose of personal and financial growth and optimize (team) processes.
What I personally like most is to educate and train young commercial talent and see them develop and grow.
Why did you choose the master’s program in management?
It had a good baseline of courses that were being offered and at the same time remain flexible in terms of courses you can choose. It was easy to go your own way and create the program you believe you would benefit most from.
What was your specialty during your Bachelor studies?
Sports Management
Why did you chose that particular specialty during the Bachelor level?
The sports industry was booming and many different companies doing all types of events and activities started to become really popular. At the same time all types of (top)sport events got a lot of attention and need for professional organisation there of was growing. I found it a great idea to combine all aspects of management with facilitating sport activities and work with my hobby all day.
Any advice you would like to give to current students?
During my studies I never could have predicted to end up where I have ended up now, not even the industry. In my opinion planning is only possible up until a certain extent, and maybe type of job you would like to do. My first job after university was for a Swedish online marketing technology enabler, this is how I learned about this very exiting and fast moving world of online marketing and advertising.
To give an example:
After almost two years at Freespee I started doubting if I wanted to remain to be in sales oriented jobs for the rest of my carreer or if would like to do something else. I took my chances and became operations manager for a online fashion start-up in a incubator with a lot of venture capital backing. It turned out to be the best decision I could have made and I have learned a lot about myself, in less than three months. I learned that operations management and working in MS excel most of the day is absolutely not my thing, I wasn't good at it and I wasn't enjoying it. I missed to be part of the commercial front-end of the business. The incubator company restructured and I got laid off unexpectedly during my probation time. A few months later they shut down completely.
Obviously, none of this was planned. But then the position I had interest in opened up in the meantime and I managed to land the job. Right now I am in a great position where I can mix my commercial capabilities and drive with strategic planning, while having a lot of autonomy. My days are never the same and never boring. I work with very fun, friendly and capable people that are inspiring and willing to move forward.
Therefore, I do not regret any of the choices I have made. You always learn something new. I know plenty of people that have studied something completely different than where they have ended up. Your studies do not pin you down for the rest of your life, they merely provide you a good background and the type of thinking that is needed to succeed, both hard and soft skills.