Sander Olislagers

Profile

I'm a product leader who turns company vision into outcome-driven roadmaps and builds teams that can actually deliver them. Over the past decade I've moved organizations from gut feeling to evidence-based decision making, most recently leading a 19-person Product & Growth organization to 28% YoY revenue growth and 29% gross-margin growth. I care as much about the health and autonomy of the team as I do about the numbers.

Experience

1. Jan 2021 — Current

   Director of Product & Growth

   Bambelo · Breda, NL

   Leading a cross-functional Product & Growth organization (19 FTE), reporting directly to the CEO with shared P&L budget responsibility. Bridging Engineering, Product and Commercial Strategy to drive scalable performance.

   • Defined and executed the long-term product vision, moving the organization from a feature factory to an outcome-driven product culture.
   • Achieved 29% YoY gross-margin growth by scaling B2C marketing and product development initiatives.
   • Drove 28% YoY revenue growth by aligning the product roadmap with commercial growth levers and optimizing the full acquisition funnel.
   • Reached an 11% experimentation success rate, accounting for EUR 1.2M additional revenue from experiments owned by the software development team.
   • Created the yearly strategic roadmaps for product development and marketing, securing leadership buy-in.
   • Increased psychological safety, autonomy and intrinsic motivation through Best-Self reviews and an OKR system, coaching both direct reports and fellow managers.

2. Nov 2018 — Jan 2021

   Team Lead Product Development & Marketing

   Yonego / Bambelo · Breda, NL

   Led both product development and marketing for Bambelo, a lead-generation concept serving verticals from real estate and home renovation to solar and moving services across multiple countries.

   • Coached agile best practices and introduced experiment-based development and data-driven decision making in the product team.
   • Drove exponential growth through a performance marketing mix delivering high-intent traffic to 30+ websites in multiple countries.
   • Built scalable acquisition loops by automating data flows between marketing and product to maximize ROI.
   • Aligned company goals with team-level OKRs across both departments.

3. Nov 2017 — Nov 2018

   Product Owner — Core Customer Journey

   Booking.com · Amsterdam, NL

   Validated and executed strategic product initiatives for high-traffic touchpoints, balancing user needs with global scalability.

   • Used rigorous A/B testing and data analysis to validate initiatives at scale.
   • Championed continuous product discovery, translating qualitative research and quantitative data into actionable backlogs.

4. Mar 2017 — Nov 2017

   Product Owner — Team Search

   Funda · Amsterdam, NL

   Steered one of six product development teams building the most visited residential property website in the Netherlands.

   • Specialized in optimizing the search experience on funda.nl.

5. Oct 2015 — Mar 2017

   Head of Product Innovation — Directories, Hettestpanel and Storefronts

   Sanoma NL · Netherlands

   Responsible for a range of digital assets including websites and apps, reporting directly to business unit managers and board members.

   • Led and coached product owners, product managers and site owners, raising the expertise level in concept development and product ownership.
   • Optimized agile scrum processes from a business perspective.
   • Knowledge Champion in the Sanoma Academy program, transforming traditional business units into crossmedia companies.

6. Apr 2014 — Oct 2015

   Sr. Product Manager Innovation — Directories & Hettestpanel

   Sanoma NL · Netherlands

   Responsible for all product development and innovation projects within the Directories business unit.

   • Managed product ownership for all digital assets within the business unit.
   • Dotted-line management of two product owners.

7. Sept 2013 — Apr 2014

   Product Manager

   Shop2market · Netherlands

   Helped define the product role at a technology company that is market leader in conversion attribution technology.

   • Set up a pragmatic process interconnecting IT development with support, marketing and sales.
   • Owned the product development roadmap based on the company's strategic vision.
   • Built and improved features based on user feedback and company needs.

8. Jun 2012 — Jul 2013

   Online Marketeer Digital Media

   RTL Nederland · Netherlands

   Ran crossmedia marketing campaigns to increase engagement, reach and conversion for RTL's video platforms and television shows.

Skills

Education

• Bachelor Production & Imagineering — minor in imagineering, crossmedia concepts (Blue Ocean Strategy), online marketing strategy

  NHTV Internationale Hogeschool

  2005 — 2008

• Academy for ICT & Media — minor in software programming & network security

  Avans Hogeschool Breda

  2002 — 2005