Jorn Bood

Smartdeal.de – Preferred Direct Channel for Vodafone Germany

Assignment: Engage as Associate Partner for Direct Business, responsible for building a new direct-to-consumer distribution channel for Vodafone Germany’s internet and TV services.

Responsibilities and Achievements:

• Designed and executed a new digital distribution strategy in Germany, with full P&L ownership.
• Launched smartdeal.de as a preferred direct distribution channel for Vodafone Germany, offering fixed internet and TV services to German households.
• Negotiated and formalized a strategic distribution partnership with Vodafone, managing commercial and operational integration.
• Delivered a complete Go-To-Market strategy, customer journey design, platform development, and campaign activation.
• Faced and overcame significant challenges, including operational complexity, legal requirements, and local market dynamics.

Result: A fully operational platform that enabled Vodafone to extend its reach through a new, agile sales channel.
Key Takeaway: A steep but rewarding learning curve in launching and scaling a digital business in a highly competitive and complex market.

Active across several AI-focused initiatives, combining strategic guidance, ecosystem development, and hands-on Go-To-Market leadership.

Key Involvements:

• Go-To-Market Lead – Emerging AI Startup: Supporting a new B2B AI venture in the development and launch of a platform designed to automate market-to-lead and lead-to-order flows. Responsible for positioning, product-market fit validation, partner ecosystem setup, and GTM execution.
• AI Implementation in the Parking Industry: Led implementation tracks for AI-based solutions within parking operations, focusing on predictive analytics, dynamic pricing, and license plate recognition. Worked closely with stakeholders across operations and IT to embed AI into core workflows.
• Member of the AI Advisory Council – Gooise Scholen Federatie: Advising the federation on responsible and strategic use of AI in education. Topics include AI literacy, risk governance, and opportunities for personalized learning.
• Go-To-Market Lead – Emerging AI Startup: Supporting a new B2B AI venture in the development and launch of a platform designed to automate market-to-lead and lead-to-order flows. Responsible for positioning, product-market fit validation, partner ecosystem setup, and GTM execution.

Result: Accelerated AI adoption in both established and emerging domains, with a focus on real-world applicability, ethical deployment, and commercial scalability.

Role Summary:
As a senior commercial leader and member of the Consumer Leadership Team, I held full accountability for building and leading a newly structured organization across all consumer-facing channels. This included ownership of a €100M OPEX budget, responsibility for 1,100 FTE, and delivery of all commercial targets in the consumer market.

Key Achievements:

• Delivered +8% YoY sales growth, outperforming market benchmarks.
• Reduced operational expenditure by 5% YoY, driving cost efficiency and resource optimization.
• Achieved market leadership in consumer revenue share, strengthening competitive position.
• Raised employee engagement from 70% to 82% (engagement index), through targeted leadership development and cultural initiatives.
• Built and aligned a new senior leadership team across all sales domains, including Digital, Retail, Partner Sales, Inbound & Outbound, Local Sales, and Saves.
• Drove major transformation efforts, embedding digitalization, customer-centricity, and performance accountability throughout the commercial organization.

Impact:
By combining strong commercial insight with a collaborative leadership approach, I successfully transformed a large, complex sales organization into a high-performing, customer-driven operation. My ability to build alignment, lead change, and empower teams was instrumental in delivering consistent, sustainable business results.

• At the start of the Joint Venture I was appointed to lead the Telesales and Digital sales organisation.
• With a full focus on executing a converged strategy, I successfully led the team to achieve stellar results.
• Under my leadership, the sales organisation surpassed its targets, resulting in a significant increase in revenue and market share.
• I developed and implemented effective sales strategies, trained and coached the team on best practices, and fostered a culture of continuous improvement.

• As Director of Telesales and Saves at Ziggo, I focused on decreasing churn rate while optimising the Telesales organisation.
• With my leadership and strategic vision, I achieved outstanding results and reduced churn from over 10% to just 7%.
• In order to achieve this, I led a comprehensive review of the Telesales organisation, identifying opportunities to improve processes and optimise the balance between in-house and outsourced resources.
• Through this review, I was able to combine locations, resulting in greater efficiency and cost savings for the organisation.

• As a member of the management board of Thomas Cook NL, I was accountable for the P&L of 450 mln and led the commercial departments of the company, including Sales, E-commerce, and Marketing.
• With my leadership and strategic vision, I achieved the commercial targets and transformed the business into a digital company.

• During my 10 years with Vodafone, I held several key leadership roles, including Head of Digital and other commercial departments, based in London, Spain, and Amsterdam.
• I was also part of the global leadership program, which provided me with a unique and valuable perspective on international business practices.