Beer Van Haagen

In my role as Head of Proposition Development for Affluent Clients, I led a multidisciplinary team of researchers, UX designers, and consultants in shaping and delivering the customer strategy for one of the bank’s most valuable client segments. My responsibility spanned the full journey: from defining strategic direction with executive stakeholders, to guiding teams in the development and launch of new propositions and solutions.

Operating at the intersection of customer experience, business strategy, and digital innovation, I ensured that strategic ambitions were translated into tangible outcomes. This required balancing complex stakeholder landscapes, from C-level executives to product owners, while keeping the customer perspective central. I combined a strong strategic vision with hands-on leadership, ensuring involved teams were empowered, aligned, and able to execute at pace.

With an entrepreneurial mindset, I fostered experimentation and speed-to-market, ensuring ideas were tested, refined, and scaled where impactful. The result was a series of customer-focused initiatives that strengthened the bank’s position with affluent clients and delivered measurable business value.

As CX Consultant, I worked across multiple customer segments and product units, taking a structured approach to complex change. I combined customer insights with strategic frameworks, balancing desirability, feasibility, and viability, to ensure initiatives were not only innovative but also viable and aligned with business priorities. Getting things done!

Key initiatives included defining ABN AMRO’s international Sustainable Investing strategy and proposition, contributing to the bank’s life event strategy and propositions, and shaping new digital in-app capabilities such as personal finance management and future planning features.

I ensured we craft creative and compelling stories around these new products and services, ensuring they connected directly to customer needs. Doing so I closely collaborated with ABN AMRO stakeholders including brand, marketing, communications, e-commerce teams, strategic teams, and product delivery teams.

A core part of my contribution was in process and facilitation. I frequently organized and led design sprints and co-creation sessions, helping teams move quickly from insight to tested concept. By structuring the “why” and “for whom” into these processes, I ensured that strategy translated into propositions with clear customer relevance and tangible business value.

This role was a critical stepping stone toward my leadership as Head of Proposition Development, building depth in customer-centric strategy, executive exposure, and structured delivery methods.

I was a key player in the success of EY’s corporate innovation program, managing it from idea to implementation and being responsible for operations. My role combined strategy and execution: from defining the innovation strategy with partners to guiding colleagues through the innovation process: from idea validation to letters of intent, to early sales and marketing of new solutions.

Over five years, what began as a local initiative in Eindhoven grew into a program that expanded across Western Europe and the Nordics, engaging more than 1,500 colleagues. The program fostered a spark of entrepreneurship within EY, while creating new revenue opportunities and process optimizations.

Alongside program delivery, I worked closely with partners and EY’s wider startup ecosystem, from open innovation programs to accelerator partnerships, ensuring ideas were tested and strengthened through external collaboration.

We also shared and sold the program’s methods and structure to clients, turning our program into a commercial proposition.