Bram Tijdhof

Bram Tijdhof dreamed of a career in consulting, but after a few years as a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Amsterdam he made his Consulting Exit. He started working as a Strategy Manager at Ziggo.

What is it you do as Strategy Manager?

"I think up Ziggo’s long term planning. I check whether we are well organized internally, but I also look at the market as a whole. How does it evolve, what is KPN doing, our biggest national competition? In the past the cable industry was only involved in television, but now telephones and the internet have become part of the package and so the industry has become more diverse as well as more international. Therefore I don’t just pay attention to what happens in the Netherlands, but I also keep tabs on what the newest start-up in Silicon Valley has just come up with. Suddenly we also need to take heed of global players, of parties such as Google, Apple and Netflix. Recently I have been keeping a close watch on Wifi. Ziggo has started to work on a Wifi-network covering that particular part of the Netherlands which we service. I work out how to roll out the network, consider which security measures are needed and think about how many devices can be plugged in to such a wifi-hotspot simultaneously, because no one wants a hundred people to gather in front of their house at the same time in order to be able to log on to the internet. I don’t deal with the concrete side of things, I just develop the big picture and manage the several departments that do work on its practical enrolment."

You were at BCG for five and a half years, what were your reasons for saying goodbye to the company?

"Before I started working for BCG I was a consultant for two and a half years in London. I felt the seven-year itch, the eight-year itch in my case. I wanted to be in an organization for a longer period of time, I wanted to be part of the trajectory leading from a single thought to its execution and I was ready to experience the ‘safety net’ of a company. Safety… it is not like we are taking a nice hot bath every day at Ziggo, watching our television networks together, because this is also a company focused on results. But I no longer have to switch to a different club every three months, where I need to prove myself first and won’t be able to work well with everyone to the best of my ability. Moreover, Ziggo is a much better fit for me and my family, with a wife who is also always at work and two small children whom we haven’t brought on this earth just to leave them at day care every morning, wrapped up in blankets."

What did you look at specifically when making your transition?

"I received more than one offer, coming from both government institutions and the industrial world and I was looking for a company that offered a lot of opportunities, in a dynamic industry. Ziggo is such a company. If I look at the downside, it is that at BCG I was very well taken care of. If the computer broke down I got a new one and if something was wrong with my car I would get a replacement the very same day. They managed my entire Umfeld. At Ziggo that just isn’t the case at all times."

Have you ever needed to ride your bike to work?

"Once and it was much worse than I anticipated."

You have been part of a staff for four years, have you never considered a position as a line manager?

"A large portion of the consultants that I started out with has made a promotion to the position of manager, which was clearly on their agenda. I haven’t felt the need to do so, I like the diversity in the things I do, I have the freedom to pick the projects I want-such as assisting our initial public offering, last year- and that is a good thing. Some people are more managerial, others are driven more by content. I am the latter, up till now."

What are your dreams for the future?

"I haven’t got a plan all worked out for the next five years. During my entire working life I have always picked jobs that appealed to me most at the time, positions in which I suspected I would be able to develop most fully. Should something else come up at Ziggo, then I will consider whether I am up for it or not."

So you will be in management after all?

"It is up for discussion at the moment."