A year of parallel growth.

Where I started

In October 2025, I started this MBA year with a clear identity: a 23-year-old from Bunschoten who had graduated from Windesheim with solid commercial instincts, five years of sales experience at MATCH-DAY, and a semi-professional soccer career on the side. I knew how to work hard. What I was less certain about was whether I could think strategically. Not just execute well, but truly understand why organisations succeed and fail at a deeper level.

That uncertainty was the honest starting point behind my six SMARTO goals. They were not aspirational in a vague sense. They were precise commitments to close specific gaps: in research, in communication, in leadership under academic pressure, and in my professional network.

"The same discipline that gets me to evening training three times a week has kept me consistent in every other part of my life. The challenge this year was learning to be strategic about both, not just hardworking."

What the courses taught me

The five courses I completed this year each contributed something distinct to my professional self-concept. Growth Strategies and Organisational Challenges (GSOC) gave me frameworks to think about the kind of expansion decisions I see at MATCH-DAY every week: how firms grow, why some fail, and what the human cost of misaligned growth looks like. It was the course that felt most immediately applicable to my daily work.

Organisation Development and Change (ODC) was harder. It asked me to sit with complexity and understand that organisations resist change not out of stubbornness but out of deep-rooted systems and cultures. Leading a group project while that very theory was being discussed in class was its own kind of learning. I found myself applying Kotter's model not to a case study but to the dynamics of my own team.

Alliances, Mergers and Networks (AMN) was where I felt most confident academically. A 7.5 that reflected genuine engagement. The course connected directly to my professional world: understanding how partnerships are structured, why trust matters in long-term commercial relationships, and how firms balance cooperation with competition. These are questions I face daily as an SDR navigating multi-stakeholder clients.

Business Ecosystems and Open Innovation (BEOI) broadened my thinking most significantly. I entered it expecting another strategy course and left with a fundamentally changed view of how value is created. Not within firms but across them, through platforms, communities, and shared innovation. This is the course I will carry with me longest.

Strategic Entrepreneurship and Organisational Renewal (SEOR) challenged my assumptions about growth and disruption. It reinforced something I believe deeply from my sales experience: the best strategies are built not just on market analysis but on genuine understanding of what customers actually need.

Financial Management was a rewarding challenge. Coming from a commercial background rather than a financial one, the course pushed me to develop a solid understanding of corporate finance, financial statement analysis, and value creation. Earning a 9.0 reflects genuine effort and the value of stepping outside my comfort zone.

The goal I did not reach

The networking goal is the one I need to address honestly. I set out to attend five industry events and conduct five informational interviews. I did not get there. The reason is simple and uncomfortable: I consistently deprioritised it in favour of things that felt more urgent. A deadline, a busy week at MATCH-DAY, a training session that could not be missed.

What this taught me is a distinction I had not made clearly before. Networking is not an outcome, it is a habit. You do not network when there is time. You build it into your routine the same way I build in gym sessions. The metacognitive lesson here is that I optimise well for structured, time-bound tasks and I need to apply the same structure to relational investment. That is something I am actively building into my approach going forward.

Who I am becoming

I started this year as someone who worked hard and instinctively. I am leaving it as someone who works hard and thinks carefully about why. The MBA has not changed who I fundamentally am. It has given me language, frameworks, and perspective to be more deliberate about the kind of professional and leader I want to become.

My combination of a commercial background, 5+ years of front-line sales experience, and now a master's in Strategy and Organisation is not accidental. I am building towards roles where strategy meets execution, where business development decisions are grounded in both market reality and organisational capability. The sports and tech sectors remain my focus, because they sit at the intersection of the two worlds I know best.

Playing soccer at Derde Divisie A level while completing this programme has been a weekly reminder that high performance requires recovery, that teams win on trust and communication more than individual brilliance, and that the discipline of showing up when you are tired is itself a transferable skill. Employers rarely see that on a grade list. I hope this portfolio shows it.

But reflection without a plan is just observation. My supervisor rightly pointed out that naming a gap is not the same as closing it. Below is my concrete development plan for the areas I intend to grow in going forward.

Development plan: Professional Networking

I set out to attend five industry events this year and did not reach that target. The honest reason is that I treated networking as optional, something to do when there was time. There was rarely time. Going forward, networking will be scheduled like any other commitment.

Starting from July 2026, I will block one evening per month specifically for a networking activity. This means reaching out to at least two new professionals per month via LinkedIn, with a personalised message connected to a topic from my thesis or a course. I will attend a minimum of four industry events in the second half of 2026, with a focus on sports tech and B2B sales communities in the Netherlands. I will book two informational interviews per quarter with professionals working in roles I am targeting: strategy, business development, or commercial leadership in sports or tech. I will also reconnect with the VU alumni network and identify two or three alumni in relevant roles for a conversation before the end of 2026. At the end of each quarter I will review whether I followed through. If I missed a month, I do not carry it forward as an excuse. I reflect on why and adjust.

Development plan: Metacognitive Awareness

During this year I became more aware that I sometimes act on instinct where I could benefit from pausing and evaluating. I noticed this most clearly during group projects, where I sometimes moved forward without fully checking whether my interpretation of the situation was shared by the team. Metacognition does not develop on its own. It requires deliberate practice.

I will keep a short weekly reflection log, written every Sunday evening. Three questions: What went well this week? Where did I rely on instinct when I should have reflected first? What will I do differently next week? After every significant professional interaction at MATCH-DAY, such as a client onboarding or a team review, I will ask one colleague for specific feedback on how I communicated and whether I listened effectively. I will introduce a monthly self-evaluation moment, aligned with my thesis supervisor check-ins, where I explicitly assess whether my research decisions and study approach are still on track. I will also revisit my SMARTO goals every six weeks rather than only at year-end, so that adjustments happen in real time rather than in retrospect.

Development plan: Academic Writing and Analytical Depth

My grades in Period 1 reflect solid understanding but limited depth in academic argumentation. I know what I think. I do not always build the argument with enough rigour. This became clearer when I compared my own written work to the feedback I received in BEOI and AMN, where my grades were significantly higher. Before submitting the thesis, I will develop my academic writing as a deliberate skill rather than treating it as a by-product of reading more.

I will use the VU Writing Centre for at least two sessions before the thesis submission deadline to get structured feedback on argumentation and structure. For each thesis chapter draft, I will ask myself explicitly: does every claim have evidence, and does every argument follow from the previous one? I will use a simple checklist before handing anything to my supervisor. I will also read two academic papers per week specifically for their structure rather than only their content, focusing on how the argument is built rather than what conclusions are reached.

Development plan: Leadership Under Ambiguity

The ODC and AMN courses confirmed that I am comfortable leading when the task is clear. I am less comfortable when the direction is ambiguous, when the team does not have a shared understanding of the problem yet. I noticed I sometimes pushed towards a decision too quickly in order to create forward momentum, when more open discussion would have led to a better outcome. This is a longer-term development area, but I can begin building it now.

In every group work setting, including my remaining MBA courses and at MATCH-DAY, I will practise asking one open diagnostic question before proposing a direction: does everyone understand the problem the same way? I will read one book on facilitative leadership before the end of 2026, connecting directly to the change management theory from ODC. I will reflect explicitly on leadership moments in my weekly log, noting situations where I moved too fast and what a slower, more diagnostic approach might have produced.

These four areas represent the honest next chapter of my development. They are not aspirational in the vague sense. They are specific, scheduled, and measurable. That is what this year taught me to demand of myself.