14 Juni 2018
“Most management books I throw away, but this one is really intriguing!” This quote from Jean-François van Boxmeer, CEO Heineken, is just one of the amazing comments we heard from our guest speakers and invitees during the launch of our book ‘Make Disruption Work – A CEO handbook for digital transformation’.
On Tuesday April 10th over 200 people came together in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to celebrate the launch. With a lineup of impressive speakers, a wide range of business, political and community leaders, SparkOptimus managers and partners, the stage was set for an unforgettable evening! Moderated by well-known journalist Jeroen Smit, the evening was made memorable thanks to the energy of the crowd, the enthusiasm of the speakers and of course Jeroen’s ability to steer it towards what it was all about: Making Disruption Work.
Our managing partner Alexandra Jankovich opened the event, extending a warm welcome to all attendees and setting the tone for the contents of the speeches of the guest speakers: leading with active vision, empowering of talent and living and breathing the customer first mindset. Alexandra reminded the audience that these were in fact the cornerstones of leading digital transformations. She was followed by Jean-François van Boxmeer, CEO of Heineken, who put these ingredients into the context of Heineken’s rich history and highlighted Beerwulf.com, the user-friendly platform for craft beer, created by Heineken together with SparkOptimus. As he closed his speech, Mr. Van Boxmeer noted that he is usually skeptical about consultants, but makes an exception for SparkOptimus – a ringing endorsement indeed!
And there were more compliments to come: Petri Hofsté, member of the Supervisory Boards of Fugro, Rabobank, Achmea, KAS BANK N. V called our book a “must read” for every supervisory board member. “It gives advice, it helps, it supports, and it is fun to read!”. Finally, Prince Constantijn van Oranje, Special Envoy of StartUp Delta, took the stage as the closing guest. He and Jeroen quickly informed everyone that he and Jeroen were going to put disruption into practice: instead of giving a speech, he was going to let Jeroen interview him. He shared his insights on our framework, and he posited stimulating statements such as his contrast between start-up culture in The Netherlands vs. North America, noting that the drive and a sense of urgency among entrepreneurs is very evident in places like Silicon Valley, Shanghai or Israel but that in the The Netherlands “We are so well organized in this country that our little success is a barrier for bigger successes.” Interesting angle to consider, we’d say!
The evening continued upstairs in the beautiful lobby of the Rijksmuseum with drinks, a delightful walking dinner, energized conversations and many laughs. The event truly served its purpose of highlighting the importance and need for a practical approach to “make disruption work”. In fact, so stimulated were many of the guests that we were inundated with requests asking when and where they could get the book. The book’s concrete, hands-on approach to tackling disruption had great appeal, and we sensed that many of our guests were eager to carefully gather and process more information about the evening’s topics and put it all into practice to kick-start their journey towards disruption. Obviously, we weren’t about to let anyone go home empty-handed without a special gift – the first batch of books hot off the press! Before going home, everyone received their very own copy of the book to remember this truly inspiring and unforgettable evening by!
At this point, you may have already heard about the book, or perhaps even read it. Alongside our Make Disruption Work masterclass, the new book is our latest conduit to share our views and how-to experience on digital disruption. Using the 5D model of disruption, the book describes every step needed to transform, build, accelerate, or rewrite the strategy of your company. These are the very same steps we follow when advising our clients and they work! If you’d like to see for yourself, you can order your copy here.
