About me
Looking for a sparring partner with extensive experience in digital change projects? I am Mellius Brouwer and my mission is to help you as an entrepreneur or executive to redefine your organization, products and processes in an imaginative and creative way so that they improve effectively and with lasting value.
Lead the change yourself, with my guidance
You want someone to stand beside you, someone to be your sparring partner during digital change projects. Someone who guides and coaches your team to get better.
My vision is for companies not just to follow, but to lead the change themselves. Hence my Business analysis as a service (BaaS) approach. I teach you how to do it yourself, under my guidance.
Now limited availability for new challenges
Schedule a no-obligation appointment. I'd love to hear what challenges you have and how I can help you move forward with my keen insights.
Schedule your appointment right away
"Business analysis is the greatest profession there is"
My journey toward entrepreneurship began after earning my Master of Science in Business Administration in 2012. I then spent 10.5 months traveling around the world. An experience that taught me to take space and embrace the unknown and prepared me for the multifaceted career that followed.
When I returned from my trip around the world, my career actually began. In my first roles as a banking and insurance consultant, I gained valuable operational business experience. I was also involved in digital change projects; I found that I enjoyed that and wanted to delve further into it.
At Capgemini I immersed myself in the world of IT, while at Nationale Nederlanden I gained in-depth experience in data migrations, business analysis and the business implementation of large-scale digital change projects.
My time at AXA in Germany brought me experience in addition to abroad:
- Active participation as a core member in a successful multi-million dollar bid in an international context
- Insights from a large digital transformation program with more than 300 employees
- Experience as a PMO and Scrum Master, where my greatest personal achievement was automating my own role as Change Request Manager
Back in the Netherlands, I was a core member of the Capgemini team that did a major innovation within the pension market. We set up a new pension administration organization with a modern IT platform for a top 5 pension fund in the Netherlands. I was responsible for the program plan and I led a team that selected a new IT vendor and successfully integrated a new computing core into the IT solution.
At ABN-AMRO, as Project Manager, I had the opportunity to set up and improve departments and processes across business lines within the domain of Detecting Financial Crime.
I bridge the gap between business and IT
The reason I am sharing this with you in this way is because the various experiences I have had have given me the insight that I enjoy connecting business, IT and other stakeholders in a proactive way. I have found that I am good at that and I enjoy doing it.
Through Business Analysis as a Service (BaaS), I combine my functional and technical knowledge and add value directly to the user and customer.
Schedule your appointment right away
Time for change
In 2021, I decided to stand on my own two feet and became a Freelance Senior Business Analyst. This decision was based on a common thread I noticed throughout my career:
- My passion for change projects at the intersection of business and IT
- As a business analyst, I am in the midst of change
- It allows me to provide keen insights and have a significant impact on the successful implementation of digital change projects
Empowering my full potential
In the summer of 2023, I realized that I want to do more than just freelance. I want to be truly entrepreneurial. My personal goal is to give space to my full potential.
And to live even more according to my core values, so that I do as much as possible that I am energized by, which allows me to help you best.
My core values
- Fair
- Positively critical
- Together
- Curious
- Analytical
Experienced business analysts are in incredibly high demand right now. This is due to the labor shortage in the marketplace, the rising demand for expertise at the intersection of business and IT, and the scarcity of quality change agents who combine this with excellent communication skills and change power.
Clients ask me to help by providing keen insights into IT projects.
I'm independent, I share my business analysis expertise and together we'll see where the biggest gains can be made for you.
My vision is for companies not just to follow, but to lead the change themselves. Hence my Business analysis as a service (BaaS) approach. I teach you to do it yourself, under my guidance.
Now limited availability for new challenges
If you're curious, schedule a no-obligation consultation with me to discover how my keen insights can help you move forward.
Schedule your appointment right awayWhat can I help you with and what do I leave to experts?
What can I help you with?
Business Analysis as a Service:
- Supervise and coach on digital change projects
- Coaching business analysts to grow in seniority
- Guide and coach to transform your project team from 'following' to 'leading' project team
- Providing training to help your employees grow in the power of change
- Advise at the intersection of business and IT
- Thinking along about creative solutions to your problem
- Making abstract ideas concrete
- Supervising Proof of Concepts with IT vendors.
- Sparring partner at strategic, tactical and operational levels
- Analyze the root of the problem rather than the symptoms
- Advice on improving ways of working and project approach
- Putting my extensive network to work for your needs
- Supervise and coach on business implementation
This is what I don't do, but am happy to leave to experts within my network:
- Filling ad-interim full-time business analyst roles
- Making impactful decisions about priorities (Product/ Business Owner: I think this should always be an internal role)
- Creating comprehensive data analysis and dashboards (Data analyst / scientist)
- Advising on IT architecture (Architect)
- Creating mapping sheets (IT Information Analyst)
- Software testing (Key Users / Testers).
- Managing the budget, scope and time of projects (Project Management/ PMO)
- Leading teams (Team Manager)
- Changing corporate or departmental culture (Agile Coach / Organizational Change Manager)
- Only facilitating process-level workshops (Scrum Master / facilitator: I prefer to share my knowledge and ideas)
- Managing production incidents (Functional Management).
- Advising on IT infrastructure, such as cloud projects (IT Infra Architect / Cloud Expert)
- Providing advice on cyber security(CISO)
- User experience design (UX designer)
Business experience and change power
Over the years, I have continuously evolved. I have a strong foundation with operational business experience as a banking and insurance consultant.
I have extensive knowledge and experience in digital change projects. I have obtained the following certifications, among others:
- PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner
- Scrum Master (PSM I)
- Product Owner (PSPO I).
- SAFe Program Consultant
- Wft Basic, Property-Casualty and Business
In addition, I have completed 30+ courses at home and abroad in the areas of soft skills, organizational change management and business analysis.
IT experience and extensive network
In my assignments, I do not program myself, but I communicate effectively with IT developers and IT consultants. I attended an intensive junior data engineer training where I learned to program with: Python, MySQL, Visual Studio Code, JSON, Jupyter notebook and more.
In more than 5 years at Capgemini, I have gained extensive IT experience. I have worked with software from Fenergo, Finly, Guidewire, Image Bugs Business, Microsoft Azure, Opentext, OutSystems, PEGA, Salesforce, SAP, Solife Vermeg and more. Within digital transformation projects, I recognize where there are opportunities for improvement and where an expert is needed. This is where my extensive network comes in handy.
Since the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), I have also been using AI tools because I am aware that there are more applications than just ChatGPT.
What others say:
"I like Mellius'enthusiastic approach, proactive behavior and energy. He is content-driven and delivers high quality. He had a great impact with leading the Proof of Concept on the pension deal with a total contract value of over €100 million. He understands the overall complexity and dependencies. He did this very well! Furthermore, he understands functional as well as technical issues and can work well in a flexible agile environment."
Jimut Basa, Head of Sales Belgium and the Netherlands, Vice President, Capgemini
"Mellius isleading in agood natural way, he was ableto remove resistance well in our change process. He is empathetic, responsive to resistance, emotions and questions.
He isanalytically strong: he can quickly take in targeted information. And process that into a process or document that is shareable with others."
Annemarie Timmer Arends, Detecting Financial Crime team member, ABN-AMRO
"Mellius has been my coach for more than 3 years, our coach-coachee relationship has grown a lot. In the first year, Mellius mainly helped me find solutions to very specific problems and challenges. Then we entered a phase where he became a sparring partner who really challenges me to get the best out of myself.He gives excellent feedback and advice. All in all a very customized, educational and enjoyable experience."
Joep van Donzel, Coachee, Business Manager, Capgemini
Want to know more about me? Here some personal facts and "did you know
Frisian roots with an open mind
- I am married and have two young children, a son and a daughter
- It is on our bucket list to visit all the Wadden Islands, including those in Germany and Denmark (see the photo on the boat to Borkum in Germany).
- Born and raised in Sneek
- I have lived in Utrecht, Groningen, Sneek and Leeuwarden and I currently live in Tytsjerksteradiel
- It is a conscious choice to live decentralized and have to travel a little more for work
- I have owned a sc Heerenveen season ticket for over 20 years
- I am a soccer player and captain at vv Hardegarijp 4
- I learned Spanish in Guatemala, where I stayed with a local family
Uninhibited curiosity about new experiences and insights
- PADI Advanced Open Water diver (see photo during a dive on Elba)
- The east coast of Australia I hitchhiked on my own. 2,600 km from Cairns to Sydney
- Traveled 1,600 km through Vietnam on a motorcycle with 2 friends from Barcelona. From Ho Chi Min City to Hanoi
- Saw the Big5 in one day in South Africa. Lived there for a month in a lodge in the bush where we were taught about African nature and volunteered.
- My guides: Albert Sonnevelt, Jon Brosio, Alex van Ginneken and, of course, the Lonely Planet ;-)
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