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Rutger Hemrika
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Experience

Engineer, architect, then leader, across public sector, science, logistics and knowledge organisations. The full CV is available as PDF.

Career

  1. Dec 2025 - now · ’s-Hertogenbosch

    Strategic Product Manager Information & AI (Head of Product Data & AI)

    PinkRoccade Local Government

    Mandate for information and AI across eight product and innovation lines (data, cloud, security, Common Ground, agentic development, AI-native), a portfolio serving 150 municipalities, provinces and water boards. Directly steering four product owners, four business analysts, a principal consultant, a business architect and a UX designer; indirectly more than 30 engineers and specialists across development, operations, service, architecture, security, AI and consulting. Earlier Development Manager and Manager Customer Care on the management team.

    • Turned the iConnect Regie Platform proposition, one platform instead of nine loose products, into an actionable product: first result validated with customers, first production customers planned Q2 2027, and led the organisational change behind it with a newly built team
    • Leading the build of an AI platform for the product portfolio
    • Development of the open-source ZGW specifications for Common Ground
    • Designed an agent-based software-delivery pipeline with human gates, approved by the management team
    • Common Ground
    • ZGW
    • Agents
    • MCP
    • AI governance
    • Product management
  2. Jan - Nov 2025 · Benelux and DACH

    Head of IT (Manager Information & Technology)

    MultiBel

    Led the nine-person IT organisation of a mass-notification platform. Introduced AI-assisted working in four departments, Essential SAFe for the organisation and teams, and an information security management system on the road to ISO 27001.

    • Customer Quality Assurance intake from three to four hours per customer inquiry to about thirty minutes, in production: agents that take notes, summarise, write the management brief and the instructions for sales and customer service, backed by a company-wide memory. Every outcome reviewed by a person before hand-off. Measured before and after on time per customer and internal effort, improved continuously on flows, agents and prompts
    • AI-assisted working extended to development, professional services and sales, cutting time on administrative tasks
    • Added integration and observability features to the platform, including MQTT-based messaging
    • Company-wide business continuity and disaster recovery plan; ISMS improved towards ISO 27001
    • Agents
    • MCP
    • AI adoption
    • SAFe
    • ISO 27001
    • MQTT
  3. Aug 2022 - Jan 2025 · Benelux and DACH

    Strategic Technology Leader

    BuyBay

    Technology strategy and governance for a return-processing scale-up of 150 to 200 people in the circular economy. Hybrid multi-cloud strategy with a low-code platform for business process automation.

    • Replaced the warehouse management system and added a transport system and low-code layer in six months: operating cost down 20%, efficiency up 15%, paid back within seven months
    • Cut IT development and infrastructure costs by 20%
    • Company-wide business continuity and disaster recovery plan
    • Azure
    • Low-code
    • WMS
    • TMS
    • Hybrid cloud
    • Governance
  4. 2021 - 2022 · Benelux

    Manager IT & Architecture

    BuyBay

    Built the cloud productivity environment on Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Teams and Azure. Restructured internal and external technology teams, governed security and information flows, renegotiated vendor contracts.

    • IT operational costs down 20% through rationalisation and contract management
    • Team performance and interoperability up roughly 30%
    • HR integrated with Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365, ending manual joiner-mover-leaver processing
    • Microsoft 365
    • Azure
    • Power Platform
    • Identity
    • Vendor management
  5. 2018 - 2021 · Benelux

    Head of Product Development, then Head of Product Strategy

    Eurofins Food, Feed & Water Benelux

    Product strategy and development for laboratory information systems across six locations, leading twelve teams and about 46 people: five regional IT teams in the Benelux, a Dutch development team, two near-shore and four off-shore teams. Solution architect for the customer portal and a B2B integration platform. BCDR leader, including rapid response and recovery from ransomware attacks.

    • Led support and development of multiple specialised versions of a .NET-based laboratory information management system across six sites
    • B2B integration platform raised client satisfaction by 20%
    • Migration of on-premises BI to a single Azure data platform as the path to machine learning
    • .NET
    • Azure
    • LIMS
    • Data platforms
    • BCDR
  6. 2016 - 2018 · Utrecht

    Strategic IT Consultant, then Head of Product Strategy

    Vilans

    Knowledge organisation for long-term care. Migrated all public sites to one web content platform, digitised the proprietary knowledge base, and built an Elasticsearch-based knowledge inquiry system.

    • Four public portals migrated, redesigned or newly built on one content platform
    • Decades of articles, best practices and care-product catalogues digitised into one searchable body of knowledge on Elasticsearch
    • Kentico website migrated to a monitored, secured Azure environment
    • Azure
    • Kentico
    • SharePoint
    • Elasticsearch
  7. 2009 - 2016 · Netherlands

    Product Manager, Strategic IT Consultant, Head of Product Strategy, then CEO

    Hemrika

    Own consultancy and product company: nine client organisations on longer engagements plus shorter consultancy jobs of around three months, in teams from solo expert work to twelve people with business stakeholders. Architecture, advice and hands-on delivery for Kadaster, CIZ, Wageningen UR, Malmberg, Strukton, Hagemeyer and others. Co-creator of the SharePresence CMS and builder of the ClubCloud platform for sports clubs.

    • Kadaster: proof of concept for digitising counters with a forms solution
    • Malmberg: architecture and integration of SharePoint, Documentum, Tridion and SAP for a national secondary-education platform
    • ClubCloud: complete club platform from private cloud to kiosk and mobile apps, integrated with the national tennis federation
    • .NET
    • SharePoint
    • SQL Server
    • Angular
    • Hyper-V
  8. 2006 - 2009 · Nieuwegein

    Technology Implementation Specialist, then Senior IT Consultant

    Ciber Global

    Built and expanded the Microsoft business applications practice. Established the agile team practice. SharePoint, Dynamics, .NET and SQL for clients including Wageningen UR.

    • Built the Microsoft Business Application Practice
    • Established the agile delivery practice
    • SharePoint
    • Dynamics
    • .NET
    • SQL Server
  9. 2000 - 2006 · Utrecht

    Senior Developer, then Lead DevSecOps Engineer

    Athena B.V.

    Built and ran a zero-footprint online ticketing platform for theatres, cinemas and festivals, with high availability on Windows Server and Cisco infrastructure.

    • Launched the ticketing platform used by theatres, cinemas and festivals nationwide
    • .NET
    • SQL Server
    • Windows Server
    • Cisco

Skills and tools

AI and governance

  • Agent platforms
  • Policy as code
  • EU AI Act
  • Threat modelling
  • Evaluation
  • Microsoft Agent Framework

Cloud and platforms

  • Azure
  • Microsoft 365
  • Power Platform
  • Kubernetes
  • .NET
  • Data platforms
  • Low-code

Digital government

  • Common Ground
  • ZGW
  • GEMMA
  • VNG standards
  • Haven

Leadership and method

  • Product management
  • Engineering management
  • Enterprise architecture (TOGAF)
  • SAFe
  • PRINCE2
  • ISO 27001
  • BCDR

Certifications and courses

  • Microsoft AI Product Manager ↗

    Microsoft, via Coursera · 2025

  • Application Portfolio Management

    BOC Group · 2023

  • PRINCE2 Practitioner

    AXELOS · 2007

  • Circular Economy for a Sustainable Built Environment

    TU Delft · 2020

Education

  • Media Technology, bachelor

    Hogeschool van Utrecht · 1998 - 2000

  • Hogere Informatica (Computer Science), bachelor

    Hogeschool van Utrecht · 1996 - 1998

  • Artificial Intelligence, master’s programme

    Universiteit van Amsterdam · 1995 - 1996

Languages

  • Dutch (native)
  • English (native level)
  • German (good working knowledge)
  • French (working knowledge)