You want to advance in your career and make a real impact. But you also know: to do that, you first need to understand how the business works. This mentality took Erry de Boer, CEO of Eqeep, from the work floor to the boardroom. He started at the foundation, learned the profession from the inside out, and grew step by step. Now he leads the company with that same pragmatic, results-oriented mentality. Because real progress begins with understanding how the game is played.

First, getting to know the basics

I studied Commercial Economics at a university of applied sciences and knew one thing for certain: I wanted to get into commerce and sales. But not just any way. First, I wanted to truly understand the practice. That’s why I deliberately chose to start in the customer support department of a project furnisher. Not as my final destination, but as a learning ground. There I discovered how the products were constructed, how the service worked, and how the production process operated. That experience became my foundation – the basis on which I could build further.

Discovering what works – and what doesn’t

Within that organization, I organically grew into project management and eventually became a department head. From my continuing ambition to discover the commercial profession, I then made a deliberate step into the telecom world. In that role, I mainly learned what didn’t suit me: hard sales. I’m really not happy with that pushy selling approach, so I quickly moved away from it. That experience was still enormously valuable because I discovered something fundamental about myself: selling is fun, but I especially want to add real value for customers. Sometimes you learn the most by discovering what doesn’t fit you.

Passion for design & build

After this journey of discovery, I also knew where my heart truly lay: in design & build. I went back to working at a company in interior architecture and project furnishing. That gave me tremendous energy. The tangible results, the creative process, the collaboration with customers – that’s what appealed to me.

I grew from project controller to co-owner, where I laid the foundations for my later vision. Around 2015, I was approached by the founders of Eqeep. They knew me from hockey and from the Tiel area. “We’d really like to have you on board,” they said. This felt like a natural next step in my career.

From CFO to CEO

So I made the switch to Eqeep. I started as CFO, which gave me the chance to master the financial and operational side of the business. This role offered me a 360-degree perspective on what organizations truly need to be successful.

In 2021, I became CEO, and since last year, I am the full owner of the organization. This gradual growth gave me time to thoroughly understand not only the company but also the dynamics of the market – again following my principle of understanding first, then acting.

A new view on IT

The most beautiful thing I’ve taken from design & build? The fundamental conviction that everything starts with a good design. In a building, you have different functions that need to come together – workspaces, meeting rooms, warehouses. You start with a bubble diagram – a conceptual sketch where you indicate with “bubbles” where each function goes. Only then do you fill in those bubbles with concrete functionality.

This principle translated surprisingly well to IT. You always want to see the bigger picture first: how does the ecosystem work? How is an organization structured? What wishes and requirements are there? How does the service to customers work? We need to think much more from the business perspective, from the customer’s viewpoint, not from the software.

Over the past three years, we’ve further refined and anchored this philosophy in our approach at Eqeep. We always start with the bigger picture, just like with a building. Through this approach, we now see that organizations can progress faster and grow more sustainably.

What drives me

What truly drives me in my work? Not hard sales – I’ve closed that chapter – but strategy formation and genuine contact with customers. There’s nothing better than sitting at the table with people, having in-depth conversations about where their company is heading, what trends they see in their market. I enjoy philosophizing about possibilities, but also the very practical aspects: what are your concrete challenges and how do we solve them together? Those conversations, giving advice, suggesting a direction of thought – that’s what makes me happy. Because in the end, everything comes back to what I intuitively knew at the beginning of my career: truly understand first, then act.

Erry

Want to know more?

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