Hi There!

I am Robbert Elshout,

I help companies and organizations to develop successful digital products. To create value I align customer needs, business goals and IT capabilities. I've been doing this for websites and apps for more than 15 years.

Contact me View Portfolio

My Story

Far far away, in the Limburg hills, I grew up fascinated by everything online related. It inspired me to start my own company (playmedia.nl) to create websites in the mid 2000s.

I quickly found out, I am no solo entrepreneur. I enjoy working with others.

Progressing into my professional career I quickly came to realize the Product Owner role is what I do best. It combines my interest in technological solutions, with business goals and customer needs.

After several years as an interim Product Owner at bol.com and NS, I joined bol in 2025, where I now work as Group Product Manager. Next to that I'm an entrepreneur on standby.

Skills

I strongly believe a Product Owner should have a toolbox full of skills. Ranging from people skills to knowledge of technology. Below are skills I consider the most important for my role:

Communication

90%

Leadership

95%

Vision & Strategy

80%

Stakeholder mgmt

85%

Business analysis

90%

Technical Product

90%

Design Thinking

75%

Data driven

80%

Work experience

Group Product Manager

2025 - present bol

Started as Product Manager for the ShopCore Backend team in February 2025, responsible for the DevOps of the current and new backend architecture of the bol website and apps, and for rolling that new architecture out to all Shop teams without compromising the existing monoliths. In May 2025 I moved into the role of Group Product Manager for Technical Shop Foundation, the product ShopCore Backend is part of. It builds the architectural platform for the bol webshop and mobile apps: the foundation that lets other teams build their features quickly, efficiently and reliably.

Product Owner (interim)

2024 NS

Product Owner for the subscriptions webshop of NS.nl within the Consumer cluster. Leading 2 teams: a backend team building the Backend for Frontend that connects SAP to the frontend during a large SAP S/4HANA migration, and a multidisciplinary team (CRO, UX & frontend) renewing the frontend design and reaching commercial goals through continuous optimization (CRO). Working in SAFe, with results measured on KPIs (revenue, customer satisfaction, cost savings) and OKRs.

Product Owner (interim)

2022 - 2024 bol.com

Leading 2 multidisciplinary teams working on the Shop Foundations of bol.com's customer-facing channels (website, Android and iOS app).

Product Owner

2020 - 2022 Rijksoverheid (Ministerie van Algemene Zaken)

Leading multidisciplinary scrum team working on Platform Rijksoverheid Online (including rijksoverheid.nl, defensie.nl and 600+ other websites). Implementing Scaled Agile Framework to provide maximum business value with several development teams.

Sr. Product Owner

2020 SmartLockr

Leading 2 multidisciplinary scrum teams (IT & UX) working from Amsterdam, Pune (India) and Novi Sad (Serbia) developing an e-mail data protection platform (Outlook Add in, Web portal & API).

Product Owner Grip app

2015 - 2019 ABN Amro Bank

Working on Personal Finance Management app (Grip) to give users an overview and insight in their daily finances.

22000000

happy consumers reached

211

Sprints completed

1255

Cups of Coffee
Portfolio

My Latest Work

NS.nl

Product Owner Abonnementen webshop teams

bol

Group Product Manager Technical Shop Foundation

Rijksoverheid.nl

Product Owner in SAFe Framework

SmartLockr

Product Owner Cybersecurity platform

ABN Amro

Product Manager Grip app

ABN Amro

Product Owner PSD2 Multibanking
My Blog

Most recent

Feb. 10, 2022 2 Comments

Don't hire freelance Product Owners?

I met two old colleagues the other day. I told them I was changing jobs and starting as a freelance Product Owner. After congratulating me on the step to entrepreneurship, one of them told me something that struck me: “I think a Product Owner should always be internal”.

soon 0 Comments

More to come

I've got so many ideas, but so little time to write them down. Will add another blog soon!

Contact me

Want to know what I can do for your business?
Let's connect so we can find out together!

Send me a message on LinkedIn

Located Utrecht, the Netherlands