Hi, I'm Ruben Timmerman
My personal purpose is to accelerate positive change in the world.
On these pages you'll find a bit of information about who I am, what I do and why I do it. My current most important projects are my daughter Noï and my company Springest. Both were born in 2009 and both are growing quite fast!
I like to write about learning, running startups, managing with Holacracy, online marketing, and personal efficiency. I speak about those things at conferences or at your company. Get in touch or learn more about me via the links below!
From me about the world. And the world about me...
Presentations
My talks about Holacracy, management and learning. And here some older talks on UX & online marketing.
Interviews
A few interviews with Ruben about Holacracy, (working at) Springest, raising funding and running startups.
Articles
My articles on Medium about OKRs, (adopting) Holacracy, startups and GTD, and all my likes and shares!
Reviews
People I've worked with have written me very kind LinkedIn recommendations, also ex-Springeteers!
My resume, sort of...
I've never really worked for a boss, but here's Ruben Timmerman's official resume!
Springest
2017... now
Springest is the largest learning marketplace in Europe, and a popular learning platform for organisations. The company operates in The Netherlands (45 employees in Amsterdam), Germany (7 employees in Berlin), United Kingdom and Belgium. Springest has the mission to help everyone realise their full potential through learning.
Springest best employer
2015, 2016 and 2017!
Springest has won awards for good employership in 2015 (1st place), 2016 (1st place) and 2017 (3rd place). The learning climate and agility of the company are lauded and employees are measurably happier than in other organisations.
Springest adopting Holacracy
2012
Springest was the first company in the Netherlands to implement the Holacracy model: a way of working without a top-down management hierarchy. In Holacracy, authority is distributed to all employees through organic, flat structures within ‘circles’ (teams) and ‘roles’ (responsibilities).
Springest from startup to scale-up
Founded in 2008
From a ‘sexy’ start-up to a profitable scale-up, with 3 successful funding rounds. With the help of Springests’ tech-driven B2B proposition, Springest Go, we aim to liberate organisations and their employees from the self-inflicted boundaries set upon the growth of the company and its people. With Springest, the proof is in the pudding - by liberating the way people learn, companies unlock human potential.
Usarchy weblog
2005 - 2009
I wrote a lot on my blog about usability (now you'd say UX ;)), online marketing and search marketing. Was the highest ranked one-man marketing blog in The Netherlands for a few years. Haven't wrote anything since 2011, but the old articles are still online.
SearchResult online marketing consultancy
2003 – 2006
We started this agency together to focus on search marketing and conversion optimisation. Pioneered eye tracking, built a lot of tracking tools and especially did a lot of training and presentations to train brands how to optimise their web presence.
