Cada dia es una Fiesta! There is a reason why this is the credo of the holding, which I founded about 14 years ago with my associate Ronald. I enjoy every aspect of life. And due to my natural curiosity and need for continuous innovation, I try to get the maximum out of it.

What facinates me every day is the encounter and therefore connection between people. Our business activities offer a platform for people to (re)connect with each other. For this purpose, we are constantly searching for smart solutions to be able to facilitate this proces as excellent as possible.

We facilitate this at CDEF Holding through two meeting-formulas, Meeting Plaza (which will become Inspired by Seats2meet.com soon!) and Seats2meet.com (S2M) (which facilitates an entirely different way of working and meeting). At S2M we do this through three different labels: S2M Work- Meeting and Officespace. Besides this you find a S2M AppSpace.

Our virtual meetingspace, Mindz.com, allows the new world to gain more shape. Mindz.com can be perceived as the Society 3.0 Ecosphere, it offers the people the possibility to collaborate with each other in a new and different way as they meet in communities, which is based on their common interest in certain topics. The S2M AppSpace offers increasingly smart social tools which could be used, separately or combined, to facilitate a smarter and more social way of communication and collaboration.

Furthermore we have our trendwatching company Human Potential and the S2M development lab; Cyberdigma. Cyberdigma develops all the ingenious technological platforms (both social and transactional), which are used within the S2M value network.

I enjoy life to the fullest not only from a business level, but also on a personal level. For over 16 years I have been happily together with Gideon and I am the mother of Jesper (8 yrs) and Mads (6 yrs). We enjoy living in Huis ter Heide and spend most of our weekends in Scheveningen at the beach. I studied Hotel management here for 4 years and ever since I deeply enjoy a life close to the beach, the sea and culinary The Hague!

The story of my life… (for those who have the time and interest to continue reading)

In my case, I can definitely state that entrepreneurship is something I grew up with. I grew up in Almelo with two very enterprising parents and my brother and sister (who are respectively 4 and 5 years older than me) in a true middle class family.

We lived in the centre of Almelo (obviously above one of our stores). My parents where always searching for innovation and dynamics in the city, operating from the motto: when you don’t act, nothing will change. They were the initiators of the ‘Star specialist businesses’, organizing fashion shows and festivals and made sure there was always something going on in the centre to which they could contribute. As Herman Finkers (a Dutch singer and comedian) says: ‘in Almelo is altijd wel iets te doen, het stoplicht springt….’ :) (English translation: there is always something to do in Almelo, the traffic lights jumps to…). In business, my parents were always looking for the right shop formula which satisfied the needs of the people in Almelo at that time. They sold lingerie, baby and children’s clothes, nurseries and then switched to selling exclusively Oilily, Robe di Kappa (yes, during the time the double polo shirt collars were popular here in the Netherlands), Benetton and finally a pilot store of a dutch firm called ‘State of Art’.

We as children were early on involved in ‘running the business’. Every Thursday evening and Saturday, we would have our own popcorn stand in front of my parents’ store. That’s how I learned to count money at the end of each day. Back then, I was extremely happy with a daily revenue of 46 guilders. Soon I became familiar with the phenomenon of ‘customization’ by running a stand with t-shirts on which I printed any pop artist, favourite animal of your choice or simply your name. Now that concept is called ‘Simply colors’ and I could have earned some more money with it :) !

If you would like to know more about my further career (schools, internships and other extracurricular activities) you could check out my LinkedIn profile.