Six months at one of Europe's largest ports, a central player in the Dutch energy transition. I joined to understand how strategic design works inside a large, regulated organization, and where I could add value in a multidisciplinary environment.

I worked across two teams: Explore & Go (internal innovation, validating new ideas and building innovation culture) and Products & Services (commercial processes and stakeholder relationships through an outside-in approach).

Five projects, one thread: from exploration to implementation
🔹 Shore Power (Walstroom).
Ships at the city quays can connect to shore power instead of running diesel engines, but responsibilities across port, grid operator, supplier, and ship were unclear. I mapped the service chain and identified bottlenecks in responsibility.
Result: concrete recommendations incorporated into the new service agreement.

🔹 Hydrogen.
whether a hydrogen test center at the Port of Amsterdam could accelerate the port's hydrogen ecosystem. To structure the question, I built an assumption map of eight critical themes (ownership, technical feasibility, financial model, risks, market need, showcase value, certification, and ecosystem function) and validated each with key players in the field, including TNO, Shell ETCA, Battolyser, Hynetwork, and Groenvermogen.

Result: a substantiated advisory report that informed the port's next steps and shifted the conversation toward broader sustainable fuels.

🔹 Public Quays (Openbare Kades).
The port's public quays are underused, despite a major investment in their renewal. The question shifted from how do we maintain them? to what else could they be for? I developed scenarios for new propositions and helped test them through pilots.
Result: two pilots set up and monitored on real quays.

🔹 Shore Leave (Walverlof).
Ship crews can spend up to nine months at sea, and even when they finally dock, many are unable to set foot on land. ISPS security regulations and operational barriers at terminals often keep them on board, a problem increasingly visible in the news as a question of basic crew welfare. The topic has reached the political agenda: parliamentary questions have been raised, and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW) has actively engaged on the issue. I analyzed these barriers and the role the port can play in facilitating access.
Result: a report with concrete interventions and pilots.

RPA cases & AI
Alongside the strategic projects, I worked on bringing AI and automation into the port's daily operations. I designed and ran an internal AI workshop to help colleagues identify where the technology could add value in their own work, and built RPA solutions in Power Automate to automate repetitive internal processes.
Result: working automations in use across teams, and a more confident, hands-on relationship with AI inside the organization.