Founder of JOA · Freelance IT

I turn complex IT ambitions into results you can actually measure.

I'm Robert-Jan. I founded JOA, an AI-first marketing company, and I work as a freelance consultant for organisations that need someone to take a programme, a delivery chain or an AI ambition and make it land.

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Two roles, one way of working

Whether I'm building something under my own name or joining your team for a few months, the approach is the same: understand the business first, then pick the technology.

Founder of JOA

In 2021 I founded JOA, an AI-first marketing company. We help small and mid-sized businesses grow with AI audits, custom AI agents, websites and the marketing work around them.

Freelance in IT

As a freelancer I step into organisations that need a programme brought under control, a delivery chain that has to keep its promises, or an AI ambition that needs to become something real.

What I do

Six things I get asked for most often. Most engagements are a combination of a few of them.

AI audits

A clear-eyed look at where AI genuinely helps your organisation and where it is an expensive distraction. You get a prioritised list of use cases, an honest read on data and readiness, and a plan you can start on Monday.

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Program Management

Several projects, several teams, one outcome that has to hold together. I take ownership of the whole, keep the dependencies visible and make sure decisions get made instead of postponed.

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Project Management

From kick-off to hand-over, with a grip on scope, budget and planning. Agile or waterfall, whichever actually fits the work — and stakeholders who know where they stand at all times.

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Service Delivery Management

Making sure what you promised your customers is what they actually get, day after day. SLAs, governance, escalations, supplier management and a delivery organisation that improves rather than firefights.

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AI marketing

Marketing where AI does the heavy lifting: content that scales without going flat, agents that answer your customers, and campaigns whose results you can trace back to something real.

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Websites

Fast, multilingual, well-built sites that are found and that convert. Not a template with your logo on it, but something built around what your business actually has to say.

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My resume in a nutshell

Where I have been, what I owned there, and what it delivered.

03/2025 — PresentCM1 year 6 months
Service Delivery Manager (Freelance)
Running service delivery for Digital Health Services at CM — the unit behind the CM app and the member portal.
- Service delivery management
- ~€8M budget
- 6 teams · ~50 people
- ICT Board reporting
- Digital health
- App & member portal
- Accountable for delivery across Digital Health Services, including the CM app and the member portal — the two products members actually touch.
- Six teams and around 50 people under one delivery organisation, with the dependencies between them made visible rather than discovered late.
- Just under €8M in budget, allocated across the teams and defended where it needed defending.
- Reporting straight to the IT Director and the ICT Board, which is where a roadmap gets backed or does not.
- Service delivery at this size is less about any single release than about six teams keeping the same promise, week after week.
01/2022 — 02/2025Ferm3 years 2 months
Program Manager (Freelance)
Overseeing the software programmes at Ferm in Wijgmaal.
- Program management
- ~€5M annual budget
- ~35-person org
- Board reporting
- Ways of working
- Roadmap & strategy
- Directed Ferm's software programmes on a ~€5M annual budget, allocating it across initiatives rather than spreading it thin.
- Led a cross-functional group of ~35 — engineering, product and operations — pulling in one direction against programme objectives.
- Set the vision and strategy for the software teams and translated it into roadmaps and goals people could actually work to.
- Changed how the teams worked, for efficiency and scale, and to close the gap between what was built and what the business needed.
- Measured the programme on KPIs and metrics, which is what made delivery accountable instead of anecdotal.
- Reported to the Board of Directors and senior stakeholders, shaping strategic decisions on evidence rather than impression.
05/2021 — 12/2021Digitaal Vlaanderen8 months
Project Manager (Freelance)
- MAGDA
- Government
- Cross-business delivery
- Process modernisation
- KPI tracking
- Delivered complex cross-business projects, keeping departments moving in the same direction and against the same objectives.
- Modernised existing procedures and processes, trading ad-hoc habits for something standardised and able to scale.
- Tracked success against milestones and KPIs, so 'on track' meant something measurable.
- Reported progress, risk and outcome to the programme manager and key stakeholders, keeping decisions data-driven.
- Got cross-functional teams collaborating and change actually adopted, which is what turned alignment into delivery speed.
07/2018 — 05/2021Tobania2 years 11 months
Operations Manager & Co-founder, Tobania.Public
- Co-founder
- P&L ~€2M
- 15-person unit
- Public sector SaaS
- Presales
- CEO reporting
- Co-founded Tobania.Public and ran it: a business unit built to deliver digital SaaS to the public sector.
- Led a team of 15, set the direction, and steered the in-house products that direction produced.
- Carried a ~€2M yearly budget with projects from €50K to €600K, accountable for the numbers as well as the delivery.
- Drove presales and business development, from first conversation to proposal to new revenue.
- Reported to the CEO on progress and strategy, which is where the unit's long-term positioning was decided.
- Built Tobania.Public into a name the public sector trusted with its digital transformation.
11/2016 — 07/2018Infra4Allfor Proximus1 year 9 months
Telecom Project Manager
- Telecom infrastructure
- FTTB
- €200K–€500K
- Contractor coordination
- Multi-project planning
- Ran Fibre To The Business rollouts for Proximus, €200K to €500K a project, delivered on time and on budget.
- Owned the whole chain rather than a slice of it — trench works, infrastructure, fibre welding, final delivery.
- Planned resources across several simultaneous projects, so a delay in one did not become a delay in all of them.
- Reported weekly to the Proximus project manager and monthly to stakeholders, on a fixed rhythm nobody had to chase.
- Held contractors, technical teams and stakeholders to one plan, with the accountability that keeps infrastructure work from drifting.
05/2014 — 11/2016Tobania2 years 7 months
Project Manager
- Public sector
- Portfolio delivery
- Presales
- Account growth
- Stakeholder reporting
- Owned a portfolio of public sector projects end to end, budgets from €20K to €150K, each landed within scope, time and budget.
- Ran the commercial side alongside delivery — proposals, presentations and the first client conversations that turn an opportunity into signed work.
- Grew existing accounts through account management and upselling, turning one-off projects into long-term partnerships.
- Kept stakeholders in the picture with reporting on progress, risk and budget, so decisions were made on facts rather than on the last status meeting.
- Built the relationships public sector delivery depends on, in organisations where trust is earned slowly and lost quickly.