Pim Stohr
Senior Manager, Solutions

Everyone at the company is ambitious and there is a constant drive to improve from one year to the next.

Over the past five years I have worked at Zanders in many different roles. Starting out as a consultant focussing on data and systems, I have ventured past risk modelling departments at banks, studied investment strategies at funds, helped corporates manage their intercompany funding, and am now working with public sector clients in their cash planning. In my time at the company, there have been so many interesting and fun assignments that it is hard to keep track. Each new opportunity offered a different kind of challenge and a new group of people to work with. After all the detours, I have now ended up at the Solutions department where we develop cutting-edge SaaS products for our clients.

Develop yourself

I think that the common factors in all stories about working at Zanders would be that it is a great place to develop yourself. Both from a content point of view as well as a person in your working life. Everyone at the company is ambitious and there is a constant drive to improve from one year to the next. You might come in as an econometrics major or data scientist but there is always room to learn new tricks. This could mean managing a team of experts to deliver the important deadline at the end of a project, thinking of ten ways to form a discounting curve, or learning about networking, containers, Kubernetes, and REST API’s.

For me the next challenge will be to grow the Solutions team from a few enthusiastic consultants into a mature and highly-productive software business. Along the way I encountered so many new things to learn about software development as well as marketing, sales, or recruitment that every day felt like the first day at school. This can be challenging, but nothing is as satisfying as looking back and just seeing how far you  have come. The support of the many smart colleagues at Zanders has definitely made it worth-while.

Teamwork

When working on client projects or new Zanders projects, there rarely comes a time where you are working alone. I think that this is also completely impossible in our job. Most of the work that we do is complex, new, or specialized – and often all three together. The only way to excel and provide the best service to clients, is when you have another smart person with you that can challenge the way you think and provide a different point of view.

In my time here, everyone has always made the time to think with you on problems or to help out when a project is stuck. The company has always felt like a true team where I got the chance to really contribute and let my opinion be heard. This also shows in the many company events that are actually fun or the fact that everyone is eager to meet new colleagues and work with a different consultants on the next assignment.

Different environments

If you start your job as a consultant, you know that you will be working with a lot of different companies and clients. Zanders is no different is that respect but does offer its own view on consulting. In my experience the company offers more freedom to define your own career. There is room to change the path that you are on and to seek new challenges outside of your comfort zone. This could result in a project abroad or working for a different kind of company such as an NGO, corporate, or bank. For me it has been a thrilling ride from the modelling departments of banks to the frontier of tech, but there are a lot of different possibilities.

Study: Master Econometrics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Master Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology.

Consultant at Zanders since: 2016