Interview
Erik Roel returns to JBR after twenty years
Twenty years after his retirement, Erik Roel returned to JBR last summer. As Director Strategy, he guides JBR's strategy team and works on client projects. Consultancy.com asked Erik what it is like to be back on the old nest in Zeist.
Read the interview with Consultancy.com here.
The new millennium was just three months old when Erik Roel first started at JBR. With over five years of experience in solving strategic marketing issues, he started as a Senior Consultant.
"In that role, I helped companies determine their course and development," Erik explains. "These were often longer projects in which we worked closely with the client. Very inspiring and instructive."
He has worked on numerous strategy and organizational assignments at home and abroad, for companies in sectors as diverse as food service, energy, industry and healthcare. He never got bored, but when he became a father in 2005, he decided to take a new direction.
"The travel time between Rotterdam and Zeist became longer every year, so I had to miss too much of this first phase of fatherhood," he explains. "In addition, I had the ambition to become a manager in a large international company. So when this opportunity came along, I seized it."
Working closely with the client
Along the way, Erik discovered that such a line role did not suit him after all. Therefore, he returned to the consulting profession. "I realized that I actually enjoy working with and for clients on substantive issues. Combined with the flexibility and freedom of being self-employed, this made me decide to work as an independent strategy consultant."
As such, he helped countless clients with their strategic issues over the past two decades. "Highlights are too numerous to mention, but the best projects do have a few things in common: they are growth-oriented, multidisciplinary and have an international dimension."
And as in those early days at JBR, close cooperation is still central. "That is perhaps most important: that there is a process in which I share and discuss insights with the client, and we adjust the approach and direction if necessary. Working together with the client is crucial to the ultimate acceptance of the advice."
Back to Zeist
As an independent consultant, Erik regularly worked with JBR in the role of Associate. This always pleased him. So when he considered committing to an agency again last year, JBR was at the top of his list. "My children are now fairly independent and I noticed that I was looking for more of a connection with colleagues again," he explains.
This is how he met Managing Partner Ronald van Rijn and Manager Business Operations Iemke Imhof. "Therein it became clear that JBR also needed an experienced strategy consultant within the team. Then we were quickly settled," Erik says with a broad smile.
He started as Director Strategy last summer. "I do remain an Associate, combining it with my own consulting practice," he explains. "In doing so, the work is obviously not competitive. We have also agreed that the collaboration will be more intensive and exclusive. The role will still be forming a bit, but will at least include supervising the strategy team and acquiring and implementing projects in the area of strategy."
"On the one hand it feels very familiar and familiar, but on the other hand a lot has also changed - at JBR and at myself."
New and familiar
Six months on, Erik has landed nicely within the firm where he left twenty years earlier. "On the one hand it feels very familiar and familiar, but on the other hand a lot has changed - at JBR as well as in myself. We have both developed considerably. Back then strategy was the leading discipline at JBR, now it's more corporate finance."
However, the basics are still the same, he can note with satisfaction. "The culture is largely unchanged, as is the strong belief that combining different core disciplines in one house has the most value for both JBR's clients and the agency itself."
And where Erik focuses on strategy as in his first period at JBR, he now brings quite a bit of additional knowledge and experience to his new role. "Great fun to guide JBR's young, multidisciplinary strategy team and do together what I've been focusing on for my entire career: developing strategies that really help organizations move forward."
And that continues to fascinate him every day - even after three decades. "What makes and keeps the profession beautiful for me is that you can delve into a new market, client and issue every time and have to put the right puzzle back together from all the pieces. You work with professional, driven and smart people, which is enormously stimulating. Very nice to do that again now from JBR."