PROJECT MANAGER
BARBARA VAN DE SANDE
Developing products that help people to live a beautiful, good and healthy life. That’s where Barbara thrives. She likes to focus on the user and human side of product innovation, to develop products that are actually made for the users and exactly match their needs and skills.
She likes to dive deep into a problem to discover the true causes behind it. To get the right answers, she motivates her team to be curious, to think creatively, to observe carefully and to speak to all stakeholders.
“COLLECTING INPUT FROM THE RIGHT STAKEHOLDERS IS THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION.”
BARBARA’S STRENGHT
Barbara has a supportive, pragmatic and motivating way of working. She creates conditions for good cooperation through good communication. So that all team members are aware of what they are doing and what the impact of their work is. She forges teams in which all members passionately work together towards the common goal, creating an atmosphere in which people help each other where possible. This can be live or digital. For Barbara, teams don’t always have to be physically together to work smoothly.
Barbara has an eye for detail but does not micromanage; she gives people the freedom to do their work in their own way. She keeps an overview and monitors the course, always with the user in mind. During the development process, she ensures that the product is not only made right, but also that the right product is made.
BARBARA’S EXPERIENCE
During her IDE studies in Twente, Barbara worked on various medical projects and specialized in Emerging Technology Design, focusing on biomedical products. Once graduated, she moved to Sydney, Australia to work with design consultancies and startups, with an emphasis on Medtech. Barbara enthusiastically led the development of a breathing monitor for newborns there. This invention makes it possible, amongst other things, for nurses to check whether a baby is getting too much or too little air in its lungs. She is proud of the end product, which can really make the difference between life and death.
In the medical environment she learned all the ins and outs of risk analysis. It has become second nature to her to think about all the things that can go wrong with many different stakeholders. This knowledge is very useful in development processes in any industry.
