Our team

Our core team of UX /CX experts, researchers and designers has been working together for years. We also have an amazing network of professionals who we work with when we need to scale up.

What we have in common is a devotion to the “power of why”, and to helping our clients to find out the answer to the only question that really matters:

Why would a person stop what they’re doing today and instead start using our client’s service or product?

Sophie Geelen

Director & CX Consultant

An expert client lead and UX researcher, Sophie runs our research projects (and lots of triathlons) As if that’s not enough, she holds two masters degrees.

Lea Ward

Co-founder & Director

A native New Yorker living in Amsterdam, Lea’s worked for 20+ years in UX/CX, having founded ecom tech company Fredhopper (1998), Cnote (2005) and travel platform JOYST.io (2018).

Veronique van Cruchten

Co-founder & Director

Hailing from management consulting, Veronique was UX director and client lead at Fredhopper, Cnote and StudyLab. She leads our major UX/CX design projects for clients like KLM.

Ritu Mihir

Founding member & Design consultant

Our CX & Design consultant with 20+ years in leading research, design and strategy projects for clients like Perkin Elmer, Novartis, KLM and de Bijenkorf. Away from work, she breeds & shows her Vizslas.

Ellen Bark-Lindhout

Innovation partner

Our go-to for corporate outside-in innovation. Ellen earned her stripes in FMCG innovation & marketing, and is co-founder & director of Collider, accelerating tech startups in marketing & eCom.

Yara Khalil

CX Consultant

A neuroscientist, yoga teacher and world traveler wrapped into one. Yara joined the team in 2019, bringing a sharp analytical mind and extensive research skills to the team.

Yvonne Drijver

CX Consultant

A masters student in marketing, Yvonne gets the user-driven content right in our projects. She’s also at the forefront of our work for To Be Worldwide in Ghana.

Gijs Kouwenhoven

CX Consultant & Digital Marketeer

Graduated from the Erasmus with a masters in Marketing, and with tons of experience working for digital agencies, Gijs helps translate customer propositions to a marketing approach that works.

Evi Hofstede

CX Consultant & Community Manager

A creative centipede, working on everything, with a bachelor in Business Administration. As community manager, Evi helps our 5hellos tool grow into a community where good ideas get connected.

Frits

Office Protector

Born in a suburb of Athens, Frits is the youngest addition to our team. He loves digging to the bottom of things – just like the rest of us.

Join the team

We’re always looking for smart, fun, entrepreneurial, customer-minded people to join our team. Both for our client work at Cnote, and for 5hellos, our online conversation tool.

We currently have 2 job openings: