Summer is coming to an end, the weather is turning colder and the abundance of sun and terrace time is really over. I can’t help but feel like it’s springtime though – when we watch as the world wakes up all over again in it’s beautiful and youthful persistence. Why? Because of where Holland Fintech is going and what we are doing.
The biggest catalyst for this feeling, is by far, our new home at TQ South. This lively, tech-driven co-working space operated in Amsterdam by TNW is just what we needed to allow our team the fresh start we’ve all been wanting – a clean, bright space filled with fun, motivated and innovation-minded peers. Particularly worth mentioning is the great Cappucino made on the 5th floor café, right next to our new office.
Our history with the building we are now housed in goes back quite a while, and at one point we entertained the ambition of opening our own co-working space here with the nearly 10,000m2 of space available as a tech hub for champions. We didn’t move forward on that plan – but we are very happy that TNW did. They’ve created space for companies like us and we are surrounded by companies of all sizes, housed jointly with Japanese giant Nikon!
The surrounding atmosphere gives a fresh boost to our team of now 15 FTE, who have been hard at work to grow our network, and improve our services. This might actually be where my spring feeling comes from. When I look around the office, the energy in our team feels like what will be a familiar vision to Dutch readers – cows making their first run for the pasture after a winter spent in the barn. Joyful, optimistic, energized and ready to make some impact.
The past year has been rewarding, but also challenging. Our network now numbers more than 500 member companies – each with their own ambitions, wishes, and needs. This presents what sometimes feels like a hailstorm of information coming at our relatively small team – but each piece of hail is a bit of information we work to harness into a broader lake of knowledge, from which you and fellow members can source inspiration, motivation and innovative ideas. We feel that we have developed a process that works well for our members and that the residual value of membership with Holland FinTech is very high.
The network has grown together and seems to be able to work more organically towards our goal of supporting the transition of the financial industry to become more sustainable and more socially connected, to be able to deal with enhanced expectations from society and the accelerated adoption of technology and new regulations. It feels that good!
As we are already starting to think about our program for 2020, we have a load of news, insights, meetings and events ready for you to learn about latest developments, meet fellow experts (and those who are soon to be) and get familiar with new or existing business partners. Over the coming months, we will keep you posted about our program, new initiatives and our own transition as an organization.
As far as our program is concerned, we have a large portion of the developments in the ecosystem covered, but remain interested in your ideas for knowledge, resources, connections or concepts we could supply to you and other members.
We invite you to stay active, and to come and join us in our proverbial spring pasture – we promise the grass here is pretty green!
Don
