Anna Willems is known to be straight forward, a hard worker and an analyst. In the past 10 years Anna has worked for multiple startups and scale ups. She has seen the bright sides and the downsides of fast changing working environments. Her overall focus is always on growth, effectivity and efficiency. However, as she herself would say: “It doesn’t make much sense to try to make something more efficient if it’s not effective in the core.”
Storytelling, Data and Teamwork
Anna started her career off working in an communication and (digital) advertising agency, enabling her to see many different companies and brands on the inside. After her experience working for an agency she quickly realised she wanted to be part of a team that contributes to the growth of one specific company. Keeping her enthusiasm for anything digital in mind, Anna had instantly found her way into a career path in tech. She grew from Growth marketeer roles into Marketing Director roles, and after that from RevOps to Chief Commercial Officer. In all those roles there are a couple of factors that drive Anna towards her goal: Storytelling, Data and Teamwork.
In the end every tech company wants growth, preferably fast because of the runway, stakeholders and/or product-market-fit timelines. However, to achieve growth multiple pieces of the puzzle have to match: your story, your data and last but not least: your team.
Let’s start seeing the bigger picture
At this moment in time Anna is looking forward to helping other teams succeed in their journey towards growth. Her ability to analyse the bigger picture, to think fast and to create a compelling brand story are assets that will help to fix your problem.
Anna has found the tech industry an incredible space to be active in if you are made for change, ready to float into the unknown. Next to that, she has seen the side of tech where marketing and sales are not prioritized – “because we have an awesome product”. Anna’s reality check: “Your marketing is not going to create itself in a landscape with over 30,000 SaaS companies which – as predicted – will jump to 72,000 by the end of 2024.”
| Curriculum Vitae | |
| 2024 – | adoubleyou – marketing expert for startups and scaleups |
| 2023 – 2024 | Specify – Design System API (FR) |
| 2020-2023 | Mention – Social Listening and Publishing (FR) |
| 2017 – 2019 | OTYS – Recruiting technology (NL & FR) |
| 2016 – 2017 | Omnext – Source code analysis (NL) |
| 2014 – 2016 | C-Community – Communication and Advertising Agency (NL) |
| 2013 – 2014 | Master’s Degree Persuasive Communication, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (NL) |
| 2011 – 2012 | Torre di Babele Roma, Italian B2 Advanced Level (IT) |
| 2009 – 2010 | Minor, Public Administration & Organization Science, School of Governance (UU – NL) |
| 2006 – 2011 | Bachelors Communication & information Sciences Universiteit Utrecht (UU – NL) |
| 1999 – 2006 | Rijnlands Lyceum Wassenaar (IB) |