Recommendations & references:
“Bas is one of the best managers I have ever worked with. He has strong vision, a great willingness to innovate in order to derive more value and an in-depth understanding of eCommerce. He worked tirelessly to deliver both tactical and strategic projects and became a great motivator of his team too. I hope I have the pleasure of working with him again as not only is he fun to be around but he makes life so much easier through the value he adds to all the people he touches.” | Samantha Bedford Head of Online, Vodafone Ireland, managed Bas at Vodafone Ireland (June 2010, January 2012) |
“Bas Wolfs was my direct manager in Vodafone Ireland for just over two years. As in everything he does, Bas was extremely conscientious and thoughtful as a people manager: thoughtful not just in the respect he showed to his direct reports, but also in his very approach to people management as a role. Bas critically interrogates everything he does in the desire to improve, innovate and perform to the optimum for his employer. As a result of this, he stands out as a thought leader and an innovator both in terms of online strategic development, and people management philosophy. As Online Operations and Strategy Manager in Vodafone Ireland, I found him to be strongly visionary and effective in delivering on the objectives he set for the team. As a people manager, he was supportive and humble: he respected the expertise of his staff and nurtured an environment in which that expertise could develop and expand both to the benefit of the company’s strategic vision and the individual’s personal development. I enjoyed working with Bas very much and greatly appreciated his mature and trustful attitude to his staff, and valued the mentorship he afforded to the team enlarge. Bas is a terrific manager, a dedicated professional, a critical thinker, and a fundamentally decent human being. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.” | Sadhbh Goodhue Web editor, Vodafone Ireland, worked for Bas at Vodafone Ireland |
“Bas is an excellent professional that I have had the good fortune to work with over the past 5 years in Vodafone Ireland. An excellent team player with a collaborative style that brought groups together and created strong relationships with ease. Bas is committed, hardworking and possesses a positive can-do attitude.” | Tania Lee Business engagement manager, IT operations, Vodafone Ireland |
“Bas is a well-balanced leader and motivator, directly responsible for the success and quality of our e-commerce activities at Vodafone. He is a hard working professional who always delivers upon promises and commitments. Simply a great colleague to work with and to work for! Highly recommended!” | Mario Grunitz E-Commerce Sales Manager, Vodafone, worked with Bas at Vodafone Netherlands |
“From day one at Vodafone Bas was my coach in my new job. From him I learned a high standard of business ethics and enthusiasm. And most of all: an open mind in matters of organisational change. The most important lesson I learned from Bas is that change is a good thing and that it is an opportunity to enhance your own efficiency, effectivity and engagement. I have yet to meet another person who works as hard as Bas. I admire and try to copy his way of identifying with his work and embracing the fact that work is part of your life. This is I think the most honest and rewarding perspective on work-life balance.” | Mark Clausing Portal Manager, Vodafone, worked directly with Bas at Vodafone NL, Mobilising the Internet |
“I have worked with Bas for about 1.5 years. During this period we managed to have a very good relationship due to the very good personality that Bas has. He always cares about people he is working with and trying to create a healthy environment that helps all people to excel in what they are doing. Bas also is a very energetic, creative and committed person, He is also professional in leading people and dealing with them. I recommend Bas very much in a management positions, he has its needed skills by nature.” | Samar Fayad Project Manager, EDS, an HP company, was a consultant or contractor to Bas at Vodafone NL, Mobilising the Internet |
“I have worked with Bas for 2 years. Our professional relationship was supposed to be ‘indirect’. However due to Bas being energetic, proactive, creative and proactive, it felt like ‘closely’ working with him and turned out to be a fruitful successful direct work relation, which quickly turned into friendship! He is such a team player whose presence cannot be unnoticed.. at any level. Working in an agile mode with my team, Bas played the client role. It was amazingly successful model despite the physical distance between him and the team. Bas is very much an agile person himself. Dynamic, open, productive, communicative, flexible for change, supportive, team player, knowledgeable, experienced and iteratively evolving ideas for improvements, He’s been doing the above on top of being the business analyst within his organization + acting as project manager, collecting metrics, handling financial, business casing and more. Besides Bas’ extraordinary communication skills, I recommend Bas for his abilities of process design, team leading, organized thinking, out-of-the-box mindset and certainly his knowledge and intellectuality.” | Marwa Sherief Delivery Manager, EDS, an HP company, was a consultant or contractor to Bas at Vodafone NL, Mobilising the Internet |
“Bas is such a business driver, he’s always open for changes. Being such a good listener and a solution provider, was a key reason for our business success. Several times he tried to change process so that it fits real world. His abilities of tracking issues, reporting them, and fixing them is real outstanding. He’s a very hard worker who would lead the drive to till he gets the success he’s looking for. Moreover he cares for his team and lifts up their spirit, and always try to build bridges between several teams so that the process evolves. It was my pleasure working with him.” | Hoda Abdalla Information Analyst, HP, was a consultant or contractor to Bas at Vodafone NL, Mobilising the Internet |
“I worked with Bas together for the last 1,5 years. During this period I have known him as a creative, result driven and friendly person, with a very good balance between what is necessary from a business perspective and what are the technological possibilities. Bas is a hard worker and communicates in a clear and understandable way. I would recommend him to every company.” | Rutger van den Berg Internet marketing professional (corporate segment), Vodafone, worked with Bas at Vodafone Amsterdam |
“Bas have set up and implemented an E2E process whereby changes to online applications which are in production are developed and installed in a controlled but fast timeframe (short time to market). It handles the process from submitting the change request from the user community until implementation by a third party. This was implemented and executed successfully. After implementation Bas has managed and further improved the process. An important aspect of the implementation was to address the cultural differences, not only between Vodafone and the 3rd parties, but also between offshore (Cairo, Egypt) and onshore teams. Bas managed to create a good understanding and relationship between these companies / teams. This increased the efficiency of the process. I am impressed by the way how Bas managed this complex and fast time to market process. Also how he build up and maintained professional relationship internally within Vodafone and with the 3rd parties involved like HP. Bas managed the as well the budget and external payments to the 3rd parties which were around 2 Mill Euro. The online applications managed by this process were covering the Vodafone portals and shop for Netherlands.” | Rick van Diemen Delivery Manager, EDS, an HP Company (business partner) |
“Bas is a hawk, an engine of effort with a non-ending energy source. I have worked with him for about eight months. He had attention to the tiniest detail and have always had a bigger picture and a bird’s eye view in mind at the same time. His ultimately positive attitude (on both professional and personal levels) have made the business relationship as smooth and delicate while strong as it can be. Financial control is one of his best experience areas and practices. He could easily close the cycles and prevent loose ends. Bas is an addition to any enterprise and is a perfect sample of how a professional leader can be.” | Ahmad Abozaid PMP, Senior Project Manager / Project Analyst, HP Enterprise Services, was a consultant or contractor to Bas at Vodafone Netherlands |
”I have been working with Bas for Vodafone project for over 10 months now. Recently, I had some real good interactions with him during my Ireland visit. He is an excellent Customer to work with as he has a clear and balanced view of on-going work and long term relationship. His attitude and approach towards Customer-Vendor relationship makes the business more interactive, successful and long-standing. He has a deep understanding of the work he is involved in and more importantly, he communicates the same to everyone in the team. His knowledge on the various cultures, work-styles and life-styles gives him an edge to handle the vendors from around the globe. Above all, he is an excellent person to work with. He is a nice blend of a tough task master and soft human-being.” | Anil Potharaju Project Manager at Infosys |
“Bas has been one of the best professionals and a client I have had worked with for over 11 months now, who is managing Online Operations and Strategy for Vodafone Ireland. Being himself taken over this role from his previous engagement with Vodafone Netherlands, he brought in incredible creative energies in the engagements I had with him. He is in excellent in managing all types of stakeholders spread across geographies and cultures. Always, in his work, Bas is consistent, dedicated and passionate, enthusiastic, cheerful, and a pleasure to work with. His intellect is matched by his ability to communicate clearly, and to project an open, friendly persona to others regardless of their, level of expertise. His excellent people connect; positive outlook and pleasing personality enhance his natural leadership and people relationship qualities. His willingness to accept challenges and listen to input enable him to contribute thoughtful, well-reasoned approaches while at the same time with the people connect motivate and get the experts contribute to the cause. I have been privileged to work with him on multiple projects who is a well-deserved public profile amongst different business, technologies, operational internal and external communities.“ | Amol Nahar Lead Consultant at Infosys Technologies Ltd, was a consultant or contractor to Bas at Vodafone Ireland |
"Bas worked closely with my team as a key business interface into the IT organisation. Bas was visionary in his approach to developing how technology could be optimally integrated into our business processes to generate higher service quality and enhanced business value. The epitome of customer advocacy, he ensured that everything we collaborated on was in the best interest of the end customer. I was just as impressed with the progressive approach Bas took to leadership, focussing heavily on how his team worked, in the belief that superior “what” follows better “how” – requires brave leadership, notably when under pressure." | Shane Gaffney Director of IT Operations at Vodafone Germany-Ireland |