Life Of A Lepayaan: Meet Lisanne

Lisanne Bos – de Zeeuw recently celebrated her first Lepaya-versary. Customer Success Manager Lisanne is an integral part of Lepaya’s commercial team. I sat down with Lisanne to speak about the academic and professional path that led her to her role at Lepaya, starting with her studies in Rotterdam and now living in Gouda while working in Amsterdam. Meet Customer Success Manager Lisanne!

Lisanne presenting for Masterpeace accompanied by her father and school director

Where did you study before Lepaya and what study did you follow?

Even in high school, I wanted to participate in extra courses to develop my skills and knowledge, but found a lack of opportunity to do so. When choosing my Bachelors, I knew I wanted the equal opportunity experience that a big university in a big city would offer me. I did my Bachelors in Business Administration at the Rotterdam School of Management, a study with approximately 3,000 students. I remember one of my first lecturers delivering the age old “Look to your left, look to your right, only one of you will be here next year” cliché. However my peers and I pulled through, right till the end!

Lisanne and her parents at her Bachelor Graduation

While I enjoyed being a part of a large study, I wanted to make myself more unique. In doing so, I sought out a smaller scale master where I could really refine my skills and meet like minded people. I discovered the Innovation Management Master, also at the Rotterdam School of Management! This master gave me the opportunity to meet many international students of different cultures, all of whom were highly motivated to be there. I returned to the Rotterdam School of Management for a few years after finishing, to promote the program and show how it helped me to excel in my career.

What organizations did you work for prior to joining Lepaya as Customer Success Manager?

I started my HR career early. During my time at university, I picked up a part time HR position for an elderly care centre- Zorgpartners Midden Holland. I stayed here for 4 years working part-time.

This really gave me the opportunity to grow alongside personal advisors and I was even able to implement a HR system for the company.

After my time in the HR role, I wanted to try something a bit different. During my time in university I completed an internship in Innovation Management at the Bridge Business Innovators. I enjoyed my internship immensely and was offered a permanent position, but I was curious how working life at an international corporation would be.

Lisanne in 2012 while working for The Bridge

In pursuing my traineeship, I took a forward-thinking and pragmatic approach. I considered all my contacts, people who had an interesting career path and companies offering traineeships. (Lisanne has written an insightful blog about her journey to find her traineeship – be sure to check it out!)

During my time in Education, I noticed that there were many opportunities for change, but the pace of change was too slow.

This approach helped me land my role at Microsoft as a Business Development Manager in Education. I stayed with Microsoft for 7 years, fulfilling multiple roles in Education and finally in Modern Workplace. During my time in Education, I noticed that there were many opportunities for change, but the pace of change was too slow. Looking for a faster pace, I joined Modern Workplace which led me to introduce the future of working to hundreds of employees and initiative takers across Microsoft’s clients.

It was during this time Lisanne realised she was best suited for roles where she could utilise her listening and communicative skills to their full potential. She left Microsoft with no set plan in mind, at the peak of her performance.

So, what came next for you?

I took some time off from my career and decided to focus on meditation and transformational work. I invested my time and energy into my own development and went “Totally Soft!”.

During my time at university and during my career, I had quite a lot of tangible hard skills, but I realised it was my soft skills that I used day in day out, working or not. During my career break, I gained space and perspective on the bigger picture. This time away gave me the ability to envision things in an inspiring yet realistic manner.

And now you are with Lepaya! How has it been for you?​

Well today, I work as a Customer Success Manager at Lepaya. In my role, I design learning paths together with L&D and HR professionals with the goal to make employees lead happier lives! I am the contact person that organizations in need of learning paths and development look to.

When it comes to working for Lepaya, what I love is that they see your true colours and make sure you are in the right spot to make your colours pop.

I love my role because I act like a spider in a web. I work across many departments at Lepaya to build the structure of these learning paths. After building a learning path, I then present it to the organization and implement the training with our delivery and learning teams.

When it comes to working for Lepaya, what I love is that they see your true colours and make sure you are in the right spot to make your colours pop. Coming from larger scale organizations, as big as Microsoft, Lepaya was a totally different ball game for me.

In spite of Lepaya being a new type of organization for Lisanne, it was one to which she brought a very grounded, corporate perspective. Customer Success Manager Lisanne has the ability to both think big and think realistically, which makes her the perfect fit for Lepaya.

Join our commercial team, like Lisanne!

Lisanne is a crucial part of Lepaya’s commercial team. A team that Lepaya is expanding and growing!

For the available opportunities at Lepaya, be sure to check out our Careers Page.

If you would like to have a chat with Customer Success manager Lisanne herself, reach out! She can help you bring your organization’s L&D to the next level!