What path has your career taken?
An enjoyable path. My career has been landmarked with a lot of travel: I’ve lived in Hong Kong and Spain for my first job in the production waste-management industry. Afterwards, I joined the tech industry first in Amsterdam at Layar (AR start-up), and then in Dublin at Facebook (and Instagram). I quit my job at Facebook eventually to pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions. I moved back to Amsterdam and started a consumer-facing video production company. After building a successful business, I felt that the company basically became an agency that was more focused on client-facing content, than I was comfortable with. I was toying with the idea of a magazine then – which I then put into my current endeavor, and 1.5 years realized. That endeavor has resulted into my recently released magazine,
Get Familiar. It explores hip-hop’s global footprint, which means that, we try to uncover the influence that the hip-hop has on fields outside of music, as well as the music itself. I am the founder and managing director of its publisher (that also functions as a digital strategy consultancy),
Zuurtstof Media. Basically, tying together my story-telling ambitions with my love for hip-hop.
What is your relationship with Zoku Amsterdam, and what are your thoughts?
I’ve been a
WorkZoku member at Zoku Amsterdam since April 2019, I believe. I’ve never stayed at the hotel but I’m an avid user of the Co-Working spaces, though. The location is great! The Roof Terrace makes it all worth it (in the summer and winter).
What’s a life-changing song, film, event or book you’d like to recommend to others?
For all the readers out there, do yourself a favor and buy one of these:
Which book/product have you gifted the most, and why?
What is one piece of advice or tip in your field of work that you want to give to people?
Have the audacity to be different. It’s easy to follow the path that’s already laid out. It’s easy to listen to someone telling you “that’s just the way that things work”. Transition yourself from one field to the next. See and experience as many different fields of work as possible. Dive into the unknown. Not because of some self-help “you grow with every experience” type thing – but because understanding the world around you from different angles, allows you to see the same scenario, that a colleague might see, with a different perspective. Don’t perpetuate more of the same. Perpetuate change.
