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Creating unique experiences

Let's talk events! 

Hosting | Organizing | Speaking 

During my professional career, I have been responsible for developing, designing, and organizing international events creating unique experiences for international clients, suppliers, and colleagues. From multiple-day events such as Corporate Meetings, Retail Congresses, or Global Sales Meetings to one-off unique meetings such as 10-year jubilee events, Christmas parties, or team events. Both online and offline and always from concept development to execution. 

 

 

Creating unique experiences

EMD 35 years jubilee event

I had the absolute pleasure of organizing the European Marketing Distributionโ€™s (EMD) 35th jubilee event in Zurich at the stunning Dolder Hotel AG with over 250 delegates. All the hard work leading up to the event, my 27,000+ steps, and more than 20 hours of being "on it" on the event day itself paid off! ๐Ÿƒโ€โ™‚๏ธ๐Ÿ’ช

 

 

We had inspiring plenary sessions, with captivating art created live by the incredible sand wizard Gert van der Vijver, and a thought-provoking keynote by Doug Stephens ๐ŸŒŸ. The afternoon was filled with meaningful 1-on-1 networking opportunities, bringing together both the private label industry and the a-brand industry; a truly unique aspect of EMD! ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿค


The evening kicked off with a Swiss-themed welcome, followed by an aperitif, a beautiful group photo, and a lovely dinner, serenaded by the amazing Debbie Sledge ๐ŸŽค๐ŸŽถ. To top it all off, every delegate left with a little memento: a goody bag that included the group picture from the evening! ๐Ÿ“ธ

Iโ€™m incredibly grateful to the project team, and especially to Philippe Gruyters, for your trust in meโ€”it has been such a pleasure working with you and feeling like part of the EMD family ๐Ÿ’™. A special thanks to Edwin Verheul for the first connection and the beautiful note you sent me Friday morning ๐Ÿ˜Š. Huge shoutout to Rene Schneider, Dom Parkinson, Jonathan Taylor, Matthew Parle, and the entire Cosaris team for their incredible work on the event app, communications, moderation, and more ๐Ÿ™Œ.

And last but definitely not leastโ€ฆ the โ€œPower Rangersโ€ Daniela Steinegger and Franziska Stucki. Without you 2, this event would have been much harder to pull off and a lot less fun! ๐Ÿ’ฅ๐Ÿ’ƒ๐Ÿ•บ

One of my highlights? A completely unexpected reunion with my first manager everโ€ฆ Cรฉsar Ruesgas Fernรกndez, after more than 30 years! ๐Ÿ˜ฒโœจ

EMD 35 Years Jubilee Event - the after movie

Quote by client:

Koen’s talents, insights, and expertise have made our event a huge success and extremely highly rated by all our guests. Koen made our event an unforgettable experience. Especially his eye for detail, meticulous planning, and easy-going management during the day made us from EMD focus fully on our guests, while the practicalities were safe and well in the caring hands of Koen.

Philippe Gruyters - Managing Director Eurpean Marketing Distribution

You are a professional, an adapter, and a champion. If I was in a fix I would want you in my corner. It was a huge pleasure working alongside you and being inspired by your can-do attitude.

Jonathan Taylor - Head of Creative at Cosaris

Relevant Retail Projects

Let's talk projects!

With over 30 years of international retail experience, I support retail organizations with several kinds of projects: from being a mystery shopper, to shop improvement procedures, from (loyalty) marketing projects to management consultancy, and from setting up and hosting retail experience tours to innovation-related retail assignments. By sharing my retail knowledge with you, I will contribute some (new?) perspectives to your retail business; on an interim or project basis.

So, let's talk retail!

Relevant Retail Projects

Projects I am proud of:

Standi: my patented innovation

Standi: my patented innovation

Unmanned and automated retail, that is not our future, it’s our present. The upsurge of self-checkout is allowing a quick and easy ‘just walk out’ experience that many find fascinating. However, as an increasing number of shoppers leave the store without any interaction with a cashier, when I was working for BrandLoyalty, I was left wondering how does this impact high-frequency retailers. At the same time, it challenged me to create a way to distribute stamps and flatpack even if the shoppers opt for a self-service checkout. All that without the need of integration into the POS system of the retailer. Short conclusion: in less than 11 months, I went from an idea, moonshot if you will, to a working device which has even received a patent!

Things we see in retail & loyalty

Things we see in retail & loyalty

I believe the biggest advantage working for a global company was the ability to connect to all mayor food retailers around the world and bring global insights to a local client. In over more than 50 editions of my monthly newsletter "Things we see in retail and loyalty", I shared relevant news in the world of grocery retail and loyalty.

🏆 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥 – 𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐭 𝐳𝐚𝐠 𝐢𝐤 𝐯𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐭𝐛𝐢𝐣 𝐛𝐢𝐣 𝐄𝐤𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐳𝐚!

De afgelopen periode mocht ik als #retail #expert en #gastjurylid de 14 finalisten van Ekoplaza en Ekoplaza Foodmarqt als #mysteryguest bezoeken en beoordelen. Een geweldige opdracht voor iemand die gelooft dat ๐˜ง๐˜ฐ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ต๐˜ข๐˜ช๐˜ญ ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฐ๐˜ช๐˜ต ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ฆ๐˜ญ๐˜ต.

Op ๐Ÿ• ๐จ๐ค๐ญ๐จ๐›๐ž๐ซ vond de feestelijke bekendmaking van de winnaars plaats bij Brouwerij Troost Westergas in Amsterdam. Tijdens dit inspirerende event sprak ik met Iris Spruijt over mijn bevindingen, waarna Erik Does de trotse regio- en landelijke winnaars hun prijzen overhandigde.

Van harte gefeliciteerd aan alle finalisten โ€“ en in het bijzonder aan de winkels in Wassenaar (Mathijs Vermeulen) en Bussum! ๐Ÿฅ‡๐Ÿ‘

Dank Iris voor de fijne samenwerking en inspirerende gesprekken โ€” ook dit keer hebben we weer nieuwe ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ต๐˜ข๐˜ช๐˜ญ๐˜ด geleerd.

๐‘๐ž๐ญ๐š๐ข๐ฅ รญ๐ฌ ๐๐ž๐ญ๐š๐ข๐ฅ โ€“ dat zag ik terug in de passie, zorg en aandacht waarmee ondernemers en winkelteams dagelijks hun klanten bedienen. Maar ook in de details die nรณg beter kunnen, zelfs bij de finalisten.

๐Ž๐จ๐ค ๐›๐ž๐ก๐จ๐ž๐Ÿ๐ญ๐ž ๐š๐š๐ง ๐ž๐ž๐ง ๐Ÿ๐ซ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ž ๐›๐ฅ๐ข๐ค ๐ฏ๐š๐ง ๐›๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ๐ž๐ง๐š๐Ÿ?

Of het nu gaat om ๐ฐ๐ข๐ง๐ค๐ž๐ฅ๐›๐ž๐จ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ž๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ž๐ง, ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค๐ฌ๐ก๐จ๐ฉ๐ฌ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ญ๐ซ๐š๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ž๐ง, ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž๐ค๐ž๐ง ๐จ๐ฉ ๐ฃ๐ž ๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ฆ๐ž๐ž๐๐ž๐ง๐ค๐ž๐ง ๐š๐š๐ง ๐ฃ๐ž ๐œ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ๐œ๐ขรซ๐ฅ๐ž (#๐ฅ๐จ๐ฒ๐š๐ฅ๐ญ๐ฒ) ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐ข๐ž โ€” ik ga er graag met je over in gesprek.

Ekoplaza winkelwedstrijd 2025 - gastjurylid en mystery quest

Ekoplaza winkelwedstrijd 2025 - gastjurylid en mystery quest

𝐎𝐨𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐟𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐤 𝐯𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐟?

Of het nu gaat om ๐ฐ๐ข๐ง๐ค๐ž๐ฅ๐›๐ž๐จ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ž๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ž๐ง, ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค๐ฌ๐ก๐จ๐ฉ๐ฌ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ญ๐ซ๐š๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ž๐ง, ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž๐ค๐ž๐ง ๐จ๐ฉ ๐ฃ๐ž ๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ฆ๐ž๐ž๐๐ž๐ง๐ค๐ž๐ง ๐š๐š๐ง ๐ฃ๐ž ๐œ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ๐œ๐ขรซ๐ฅ๐ž (#๐ฅ๐จ๐ฒ๐š๐ฅ๐ญ๐ฒ) ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐ข๐ž โ€” ik ga er graag met je over in gesprek.

Van strategie tot resultaat: mijn impact bij Toliboy Colombia

In de zomer van 2025 reisde ik namens PUM naar Colombia om het familiebedrijf Toliboy (gevestigd in Duitama) te ondersteunen in hun commerciรซle groei. Tijdens deze intensieve en inspirerende samenwerking ontwikkelde ik een commerciรซle strategie gericht op duurzame groei en klantgerichtheid.

 

Ik werkte onder andere aan een heldere verkoopkanaalstrategie en voerde een klantportfolioanalyse uit om inzicht te krijgen in de meest waardevolle klanten. Daarnaast gaf ik trainingen aan het commerciรซle team, introduceerde ik nieuwe ideeรซn voor promotie en merkactivatie, en ontwikkelde ik concrete product- en marketinginitiatieven.

Omdat Toliboy eind 2025 haar 30-jarig jubileum vierde, stelde ik bovendien een jaarprogramma met campagnes en activiteiten op, inclusief een eventconcept, een contentkalender en zichtbare merkvernieuwingen.

De impact? Inmiddels rijdt een deel van het wagenpark rond in nieuwe, feestelijke Toliboy-stijl, zijn meerdere suggesties stap voor stap geรฏmplementeerd en overtreft de omzet structureel de verwachtingen. Zowel Toliboy als ikzelf kijken terug op een buitengewoon vruchtbare samenwerking.

 

Op zoek naar strategisch commercieel advies, training of tijdelijke versterking?
Laten we samen werken aan zichtbare resultaten. Neem gerust contact met me op.

Van strategie tot resultaat: mijn impact bij Toliboy Colombia

Van strategie tot resultaat: mijn impact bij Toliboy Colombia

Some quotes from my clients:

Koen consistently wins not only exciting projects but also participants‘ hearts and minds during the worthwhile training sessions and education he delivers. He blends strategic thinking with incredible energy, powerful yet relaxed speech, and an in-depth ability to motivate and empower any audience. His passion for Loyalty Marketing is translated into his outstanding results.

Edward Nieuwland - Lecturer ORM Avans | Experienced Data Story Teller & Shopper Insights Practitioner

I have been working with Koen as a producer for almost 20 years. Together we have realized many major international events. Koen is a detail man. Conceptually and organizationally, he is a great added value for every client who wants a “different” event. Koen always goes for the best. I can highly recommend his knowledge and approach, especially for corporate retail events.

Marc van Laere - CEO Marc van Laere Producties

Let's talk about speaking at | hosting of | organizing your event!

Some of my partners / clients:

International Shopper Marketing Institute
European Marketing Distribution