Improving Leadership in Product, Tech & Operations

Executive Search & Recruitment | Peergroups | Training

What some of our leaders say about us

Jeroen Brouwers Head of Product @ Vesper

Being part of the Group Effort peer group is incredibly valuable. It provides a platform for exchanging ideas, best practices and learnings with people in the same position.

Gijs Hendrix VP of Product @ Convious

As the most senior product person in my organisation, it's very hard to get useful feedback. This is what the Group Effort peer group provides me, as well as opportunities to get challenged and grow. It's been incredibly valuable.

Miranda Ippel Head of Product @ Twelve

In the peer group sessions, Martyn listens attentively, intervenes when the conversation veers off course, and frequently employs metaphors for clarification. He remembers the main themes from previous sessions for each individual, which deepens the conversations and advice. This is not only impressive but also extremely valuable for the participants.

Arco Westbroek CPO @ Carerix

It's very useful to share knowledge and be challenged by people in the same role within other companies. It's also fun to only need half a sentence to understand each other and have a relevant conversation.

Tom van der Woude Head of Product

The peergroups give me the opportunity to learn from the experiences of Heads of Products. I notice that more and more often I find myself in situations where I can apply what my peers have already experienced and learned and I can apply that knowledge to make judgment calls or prevent making mistakes that I would have probably made otherwise.

Jelle Kamsma Head of Product @ ANP

Martijn is an excellent facilitator who always has a metaphor or story at hand to help you reframe your thinking.

Sjoerd van den Biggelaar Product Owner @ Eurofiber

Every day, distractions come by that you can use as an excuse to neglect or postpone less enjoyable but more important matters. Martijn made me aware of the distractions of the day and the choices I was making unconsciously. He didn't do this by telling me what to do, but by skillfully coaching me in the right direction with questions and tools to help me understand the situation myself.

Peter Deumer Director of Software Development

As a coach, Martyn managed to provide a mirror instead of advice. Based on what I saw in that mirror I managed to identify certain aspects of myself, both personal and business, that I wanted to work on. I very much liked his approach towards sustainable improvement.

The Value of Perspective

If you work in a tech company and want to improve your leadership, we are here to help. With our expertise in Tech, Product & Operational leadership we can help you grow.

How does it work?

Depending on your needs, we offer 3 different services for improving leadership:

Executive Search & Recruitment

Group Effort has a strong network of over 5.000 Product, Tech & Operational leaders in Amsterdam, Berlin & London.
Add to this that we work with over a hundred experienced leaders in our peer groups, making it easy for us to find and get access to your ideal candidate.

We have a process that not only includes finding candidates with the right skills, but also takes your company culture into account.

Structured Leadership Peer Groups

Imagine the insights you could gain from 7 experiences leaders in your field.

We form peer groups of 7 leaders with the comparable roles from similarly sized companies. These groups meet 7 times a year to structurally learn from each other to become (even) more effective leaders.

Segmentation is based on role and company size. Think “COOs of companies sized 200-500 people in London” or “CPO’s of SaaS companies sized 50-200 in Berlin”.

Team Assessment, training & Development

It felt unfair not to spread the insights gained from our peer groups.

Therefore we offer a portfolio of specialised assessments, trainings & development programs. We do these on request and only for the company leadership, product management and/or tech teams.

Assessments can be done remotely. However our trainings and our development programs are in person, and start with a sharply defined goal.

What does it look like?

Coaching is always tailor made. The intake is always on location in either Hilversum or Berlin.

After forming a solid coaching question, it is determined how many sessions are needed to achieve this. We have a 100% success guarantee.

Over the course of a year you meet up with your group of experts under the guidance of an experienced coach.

Together you break bread, tackle challenging cases and discuss developments in your industry that affect you all.

Over the course of a year you meet up with your group of experts under the guidance of an experienced coach.

Together you break bread, tackle challenging cases and discuss developments in your industry that affect you all.

Current OPEN peer groups

Product Leadership

It is lonely at the top of product. Whether you're a CPO, VP of Product, Director of Product or a Heads of Product. We have a group that can add new perspectives to your challenges.

Technical Leadership

We Provide different groups for CTO, VPs of Engineering, Directors of Engineering etc. We separate physical product, physical&software and software groups to make context more alike.

COOs

Being a COO is a very special role. Your company grows, and as it does it requires you to grow with it. The different growth stages require different things from you. We match you with COOs that are in comparable growth stages.

Scale-up CEOs

You and your cofounders pulled this whole company out of the ground by yourself. But now the company is growing, and you have to keep growing yourself. These groups give perspective.

Product Managers

This group was born from the requests of different clients in other groups. Good PMs function like a mini CEO and therefore need to always be on top of things. The group makes sure you keep your blind spots and other barriers in check while helping you navigate common pitfalls.

And many more!

We are currently growing rapidly. We added partner coaches and they are reaching out to people close to their expertise. Aside from the ones showcased here, you might be approached by one of our partner coaches for a group that serves your specific niche. Have fun!

About Us

Martijn Versteeg

With over 16 years of (sports)coaching experience under his belt, Martijn noticed that often leaders can easily improve just by exchanging insights.

Martijn has founded and sold a digital education company, worked as CP(T)O, Agile Coach & Head of Product.

Now, he uses these experiences to connect the right people running peer groups and doing executive search.

Martijn is known for using metaphors to help people reframe their thinking, a technique he learned from studying Milton Erickson.

Torben Mottes

With more than 15 years of experience in Product Management and Product Marketing Torben is an expert in both that domain and efficient leadership.

His career has taken brought him all over the world. He has worked in Hong Kong, San Francisco and now Berlin, where he is our lead moderator.

Torben combines his peer group activities with an active role as CPO, making sure he is knees deep into the field.

Aside from Product Leadership groups, Torben also facilitates the COO groups around Berlin.

Jaimie Lloyd

With her background in Industrial design and master in human interaction design Jaimie started her career in Product Management.

After working at multiple software scale-ups, she learned the craft of product management.

At Group Effort Jaimie helps to build our communities.

Raymond Huisman

Raymond is currently combining his studies in Information Science with being a business developer at Group Effort.

If you’re in tech and landed on this page, there’s a good chance you had contact with Raymond on LinkedIn.

Within Group Effort, Raymond focuses on outreach and supports the team wherever this is necessary.

You?

Group Effort is rapidly growing. We are often looking for new talent for different roles.

Do you feel the message of our company resonates and do you see an opportunity for working together? You are always welcome to send us a message using the form below.

Our Story

After years of combined experience working in various settings ranging from the smallest start-ups to the biggest corporates we drew one conclusion: Better Leadership makes for better companies.
Therefore we help improve the Product, Tech & Operational leadership of companies in the Netherlands, Berlin & London.

We do this using tools like executive search & recruitment, structured peer groups, and specialised leadership training. To do this we leverage our network.