Rene

Before she joined Royal HaskoningDHV in November 2017, Rene had spent 28 years as both a Technical Director and Shareholder at one of the largest civil engineering companies in the country at that time. 

RHDHV was in the process of developing their long term strategy for Digital Transformation and they were planning their digital journey with quite ambitious targets set as part of their Strong22 Agenda.  She decided to make the move and her team of 6 had wanted to move with her as being part of something so innovative and forward thinking was just an opportunity too good to be missed. 

“My colleagues and I wanted to apply what we had learned over those 28 years and see how we could use that wealth of knowledge to start something from the ground-up.  So, when we joined RHDHV, we developed two products: one for Road Asset Management and one for disaster management.”

Working in software development for the built environment, Rene says she learned a lot from her mentors, but she took the opportunity to get more involved in digital transformation, a new agenda for RHDHV.

Proudest moment?

“My team has introduced a whole new service line that RHDHV wasn’t known in the market for previously.”

“A colleague from the Transport Advisory Group at the time said he’d just come out of a strategy session, and they’d spent the last few months developing the agenda around digital transformation and the introduction of alternative revenue streams around software as a service (SaaS). It was like music to my ears because I was ready for a change.” 

Three factors drew Rene and her team to Royal HaskoningDHV: the depth of the company’s integrity, the technical competence, and the diversity of its people. She appreciates the flexibility to meet creative and innovative people from all over the world all within one organisation.

 “You can approach any colleague within the organisation and assistance is so willingly provided when problem solving to find the optimal solution. We’ve got all these diverse disciplines within one organisation, making product development quicker, more robust and with a convergence of both Domain knowledge and Technical Expertise.” 

However, the transition from a familiar company to a new and diverse one didn’t come without challenges. Rene and her team found themselves out of their comfort zone because they were breaking new ground and it was sometimes difficult to convince colleagues to integrate digital solutions into their day to day operations.

She explains: “Our team and business model didn’t quite fit into the traditional engineering design model that the company was used to. It was almost like creating a ‘business within a business’. When you’ve got 100 years of history doing things a certain way, it’s difficult to adapt to something new.” 

Despite this, Rene and her team successfully introduced SaaS to the organisation and gained the company’s confidence through quantifiable and measurable results.

Rene is proud of her team, who all joined as graduates and have progressed into significant roles within their given disciplines with two team members both recently completing their Master’s in Environmental Science and Disaster Management and Electronic Engineering respectively.  

Favourite work memory?

“We teamed on a project in Madagascar, working in disaster management and emergency response planning. Although we were a small consultant in a bigger consortium in the middle of COVID-19, we managed to use virtual tools to create a solution that ticked all the boxes for a successful project and a very happy client.”

Rene has also achieved significant successes throughout her career, including winning an Innovation Award for Women in Business a month before joining Royal HaskoningDHV.  

“What motivates me constantly is finding a solution and trying to break ground,” she says. “The majority of people within the company not only value and appreciate the diversity of what we bring but actually promote it.”