Jacob GrooteEVP Innovation & Partnerships at KPNSpeaker
Profile
I’ve joined the KPN Research lab in 1990, after finishing my PhD in Physics. Main topics of my research at KPN were how to use Artificial Intelligence tools within network and service management as well as how to improve billing and customer services within KPN.
Later I held several management positions within different departments. I was member of the board of BU Carrier Services responsible for process and system development and implementation. Later I became responsible for architecture development and implementation in the department of Fixed Operations.
My career continued as member of the board of Division Fixed where I was responsible for all IT projects as CIO of the division. Later on I moved to different positions within operational departments and serving especially business customers of KPN.
Since April 2012 I was responsible for Mobile Operations, including quality management of all mobile services and service development and roll-out of new technologies. In April 2014 I’ve finished the roll-out of our nationwide 4G network, which we completed in 15 months. Since January 2016 I’m heading the department of Service Platforms within KPN NIO, being responsible for overall quality and technical product management and innovation of KPN’s services including TV, VOLTE, Roaming, etc.
Recently I moved from the Operations to the Commercial part of KPN. Since January 2017 I’m heading the department of product management for our B2B business. Main focus in this role is on rationalizing the product portfolio, improving the quality of these products and innovating the portfolio to state of the art. Recently I led the commercial introduction of 5G for KPN in the Netherlands, where I’ve introduced 3 Value Added Services on top of the basic connectivity, with 6 Fieldlabs for customer trials. This attracted the attention of many companies and they called this the most innovative 5G network of the Netherlands. Since April 2021 I’m heading the department of Innovation & Partnerships as part of KPN Strategy team.
Specific topics that always draw my attention are customer benefits, operations, outsourcing, converging of IT and network architectures, integration of fixed and mobile network architectures, change management and quality management.
I’m married and have two teenage kids.