Freelance IT Product Owner & Project Manager
I untangle complex business flows, take out the errors and detours, and make them simpler. I advise on the best solution, turn it into a technical analysis and follow everything through to full delivery. One point of contact who sees the whole picture, from the first conversation to go-live.
Worked for
Mediafin
Janssen Pharmaceuticals
DPG Media
VRT
Chancellery of the Prime Minister
Digipolis
Telenet
Port of Antwerp
AusCyclingExpertise
A backlog built around business value, with clear priorities and user stories a team can estimate. I know Scrum and Agile inside out, but I work pragmatically: the approach follows the organisation and the project, not the other way around.
From first analysis to go-live. Planning, budget, stakeholders, vendors and development teams aligned, with an honest status for everyone and decisions made on time.
Customer management, sales, orders, delivery and invoicing: I map the entire chain, remove the bottlenecks and turn it into systems that work. Whether that means improving an existing platform or selecting and rolling out a new one such as Salesforce.
Websites, apps and headless CMSs such as Sanity and Payload, and marketing automation such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud. My background as a developer helps me judge technical choices, ask vendors the right questions and pick up new technology quickly.
Platforms and tools
Approach
Scrum, kanban or a classic plan: I choose the method together with the organisation. These five steps always come back, and I stay involved from the first to the last.
I sit down with everyone who knows the flow, from sales and editorial to finance and operations, and map how it really works today. Including the detours, the spreadsheets and the manual steps.
I take out the errors and duplicate steps and draw a simpler flow. What can go, what can be automated, and what really needs to change?
I put the options on the table with their impact on people, cost and timing: extend an existing system, choose a new platform, or change the process itself. The business decides, with all the information.
The chosen solution becomes a technical analysis and a prioritised backlog. Precise enough for a development team or vendor, and still clear to the business.
During the build I am the point of contact for both sides. I review everything, test with the users and adjust where needed, until the solution runs fully in production and the old way of working is truly gone.
Projects
My first major role as Product Owner, and straight away the biggest. Each country had its own Janssen organisation with its own wishes and priorities. I was the central point of contact for all those business leads, worked out the user stories with them and made sure an offshore development team understood what each country needed. Every three weeks a new release went live, after acceptance testing by the business. A project at the highest level of the pharmaceutical industry.
I mapped the entire flow, from customer management and orders to the delivery of ads in print and online, and built it out in Adpoint, integrated with the finance systems. Along the way my role grew: Salesforce Marketing Cloud for the email communication of the newsroom and B2B sales, Teamleader Orbit for communication agency Bepublic, and now the complete rebuild of Luxevastgoed.be.
When the sales teams of De Persgroep and Medialaan merged, I first led the quick merger of CRM and order management so the business could keep running. We then rolled out a completely new Salesforce environment for B2B clients, ad orders and delivery. Before that I worked on DeMorgen.be and on a platform that enriches TV data and distributes it to the newsrooms.
Together with the Ketnet editorial team and management, I set the digital strategy and the use of the yearly digital budget. I oversaw the renewal of Ketnet.be and the build of an API that automatically syncs content between the website and the apps.
For seven seasons I worked alongside the Australian national cyclocross team as coach and mechanic. The highlight was the 2015–2016 season, as team manager. For twelve riders who came to Belgium for the World Cups and the World Championships in Zolder, I arranged everything: registrations, accommodation and transport. I was the link between the UCI and the riders, and during the races I worked in the pit area myself. Project management under pressure, with a deadline that never moves: the starting gun.
Before that I spent six years building websites and platforms as a developer and lead developer at BoulevArt (Cronos Group), for clients including Digipolis, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Flemish government, Telenet and the Port of Antwerp. That is where my technical foundation comes from.
What others say
With Jeroen's help things got more organised. Always calm and reliable, it is really great to work together with him. Quickly picking up the phone instead of sending dozens of mails around to straighten things out, following up pressing issues and the ability to understand, see and explain problems makes it easy to work together with him.
Jeroen is quite the versatile expert and his ability to stay calm and work hard under a heavy workload is admirable. We had 3 parallel projects in the process of final deployment and Jeroen played a key role in all of them. He finished all the work at hand in time and managed to keep up with providing a clear status.
Career
2005
Bachelor's degree at Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen. Networking and programming, alongside accounting, management and law.
2008
At BoulevArt (Cronos Group). Websites and platforms for government, media and business, later as lead developer and team coach.
2013
Retrained as Certified ScrumMaster and moved into product ownership and project management.
2013
EMEA IT Project Lead and Product Owner of janssenPRO. Business leads in more than 25 countries and an offshore development team aligned, with a release every three weeks.
2015
Certified Scrum Product Owner. Digital Product Owner for Ketnet at VRT.
2016
From DeMorgen.be and a TV data platform to the merger of two sales organisations and a new Salesforce environment.
2019 - ...
The advertising chain in Adpoint, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Teamleader Orbit and the rebuild of Luxevastgoed.be.
About Jeroen
I'm Jeroen Suys, managing director of Datachain. My degree combined computer science with accounting, management and law. That mix is still at the core of how I work: I understand how a business makes its money and how the systems behind it work.
I started as a developer, grew into a lead developer and then made a deliberate move to product ownership and project management. That technical foundation means I don't just write an analysis, I can also review it, challenge it and follow it through to production.
My biggest strength is people. I connect quickly with stakeholders, from a sales team to a CFO or a developer on the other side of the world. I stay calm when things get tense, and I'd rather pick up the phone than send ten emails.
Outside of work I have been a mechanic for the Australian national cyclocross team during their European campaigns for many years, and in the 2015–2016 season I was their team manager. There too, everything comes down to preparation, overview and a team that is ready at the right moment.
Contact
I'm currently working with Mediafin, but I'm always happy to talk about future projects and collaborations. Send a message or give me a call.