Every week a member or mentor of TIME will talk you through a small biography, and more importantly, provide a little insight into their life, which parts of their agenda are devoted to time, and which aren’t.

Hi! My name is Giel Hellegers. This year I joined TIME as a supervisor for the second year in a row, and recently I became a member of TIME’s advisory board.

My own TIME adventure started in 2013, when I conducted my research for Hillblock B.V. in Singapore and Malaysia. I had no clue about their industry of dyke protection, but became a real ambassador of their product in just a few months. I gained some great practical experience in marketing and conducting research. A welcome addition to the mainly theoretical knowledge I gained in my master in marketing management. None of the courses gave me this kind of experience in acquisition, research, and doing business.

I’ve been working for bol.com, the largest Dutch online retailer, for almost 5 years now. Being responsible for promotions and marketing for the music and movies stores, the run-up to the holiday season is one of the busiest periods. So this trip to Japan was a very welcome distraction. I switched from the entertainment business to the business of cranes, garage doors, craft beers, and more for a week. In good company.

As supervisors, having experience in both business and previous editions of TIME, we are able to add another view to the project, in addition to the academic support of the professors of Tilburg University. I joined a part of the group during their second week of the trip, in Osaka. The main focus of the research this week was on plotting the market, getting in contact with the main parties and trying to verify the conclusions of the preliminary research. I advised the board and consultants with the operation in general, guided them in the researches towards the most valuable insights for the companies, and assisted them during business meetings.

The versatility of both the students, their research projects and the meetings, made this another very interesting TIME edition. Besides all this, it is great getting to know a country, it’s people and it’s culture in such a different way than you can do as a tourist, in good company of a group of enthusiastic and ambitious students.

Feel free to contact me if you want to know more about TIME!

Find me here on LinkedIn!