AWAREWAYS Ambassador

12 May 2022

Introducing: Jelle Looijen, account executive

After graphic designer Maureen Rademakers, our new teammate in the AWAREWAYS Studio, we are happy to introduce another colleague to you today: account executive Jelle Looijen.

“Account executive, business developer, commercial ambassador – the job title is not that interesting to me, it’s just that I think ‘sales’ in particular is an ugly word. Being service oriented and interacting with our clients, that’s what gives me energy.”

Education & background

Jelle grew up in Amsterdam and lives near Alkmaar in the province of North Holland, but in his college days he made the trip to Friesland. Leeuwarden, to be precise: the Hogere Hotelschool (International Hospitality Management). “Sales is not just about turnover, but about (longer-term) relationships and finding the right match,” he says of the common ground with hospitality.

“If you don’t have the same background or motivations, then it stops right there. And you can only achieve that when you start talking to each other. ‘What are you looking for, why did you approach us’ – asking questions and listening is the most important thing, to see what you can do for each other from there.”

The Human Factor

The Hotel Management School led to KLM Catering and Sodexo, among others. At the latter, where he worked in integrated facility management for almost a decade, he was a consultant, senior consultant and eventually manager of business development & retention, so Jelle has earned his stripes in the service industry – most notably B2B services. “Sodexo eventually moved house and on top of that, facilities as a sector got hit really hard during the pandemic years, so all in all it was time for a new challenge.”

Initially, that new challenge was the role of business developer at occupational health and safety provider ENRGY, where the focus was not only on restoring work capacity and rapid reintegration, but also on other factors that enable a sustainable return. “Which is to say: also strongly focused on people.”

Following ENRGY and others, the vacancy at AWAREWAYS came along. “What really appealed to me was the combination with the focus on behavioral change. That means that you are inherently involved with the human aspect. In addition, I really need a connection with the product and/or the way it is offered. Here, I found both.”

Account executive bij AWAREWAYS

“Account executive, business developer, commercial ambassador – the job title is not that interesting to me, it’s just that I think ‘sales’ in particular is an ugly word. Being service oriented and interacting with our clients, that’s what gives me energy. Look, at the end of the day, of course, you’re selling a product, but with our product we can really make a difference.”

“If you deliver milk, you can drop it off at the door and walk away. Instead, we offer a strongly supported vision, that stems from solid research, and there is a complete philosophy behind our products and our services. Moreover, the behavioral change that we make possible has a real impact – on a socially enormously important and topical subject. I am very happy that I can be a unifying factor in this.”

Security and privacy are basically new subjects for Jelle, but he also sees advantages in that. “You basically follow the same path as your clients, so you can easily put yourself in their position – a world of awareness opens up for me as well. Additionally, I think it’s important to be a generalist; I need to know roughly what we’re talking about, to be able to be that linking pin, to tell potential clients why they need this approach and what we can do for them. But we have so much knowledge and expertise on the subject that there is always a colleague who can latch on fill in the blanks and provide the answers. Together you end up with the best solutions.”

Want to join AWAREWAYS?

Then have a look at our current vacancies

Want to know more about our expertise teams?
Check out awareways.com/expertise-teams/