It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing.
Terry Pratchett
My name is Gertjan Filarski and I am a consultant for digital business strategy in the public sector. That sounds chic and just a tad bit vague – but it means I provide construction supervision for digital projects of (semi-)public institutions who do not develop software. And there are many such organisations – the primary process of a healthcare provider is to provide healthcare, not to “integrate software into an existing application landscape” nor the “development of a roadmap for migration to the cloud”.
Compare this with large improvement projects in your home. Often, for most of us at least, you just don’t do that often enough to know exactly which problems you’ll meet. Working with a professional helps you to bring about your preferences; someone to assist with formulating your requests for suppliers; and who acts as an intermediary between you and contractors or architects.
I am a public entrepreneur and act within the (semi-)public sector where I blend two different roles: that of a public servant, and that of an entrepreneur. Although these roles are usually distinct, the skill sets they require are not. I believe that the future of (semi-) public service is increasingly to think and act like an entrepreneur – building new relationships, leveraging resources, working across sector lines and acting, and sometimes failing, fast.
Within an organisation this means stimulating innovation through an agile problem-solving spirit; and across domains, it means building coalitions and cross-sector collaborations that can improve outcomes, controls cost and sustains access in ways that span the traditional silos.
Oh and I believe that if you want chaos you should try and organise everything.
You can view my full cv on LinkedIN.
Experience
I like working in organisations where implementing new technology is often considered “challenging”. Over the last twenty years I have led information technology departments of various sizes. I switched from a corporate environment to academia in pursuit of my passion for the humanities and cultural heritage in 2010. I was Director of Digital Research Infrastructure for the Humanities Cluster of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and recently I started, together with Jauco Noordzij, a consulting firm in the (semi) public sector.
The development of new creative digital solutions for social issues motivates me. Innovation is never a goal in itself. I only care about buzzwords like “AI”, “data driven”, and the “Internet of Things” when they solve problems in the real world. Problems that hamper the execution of operational processes, now or in the future. Through my work I explicitly ensure that the technical solution fits the departments involved, and can be sustained by all levels in an organisation.
Prior to 2010, I was involved in the development of business intelligence solutions and data science infrastructures in both the finance and CRM-sectors, and owned several enterprises in digital publishing, printing-on-demand and digital paper.
Network
I thrive in turning new opportunities into solidly established ventures, cooperating with partners in the Netherlands and abroad. I firmly believe that distributed infrastructure in the (semi) public sector should not be developed in (national) isolation. I worked through many EU organisations on the ESFRI roadmap, and have extensive experience in negotiating bi- and multilateral agreements with academic and commercial partners. I actively pursue consortiums that are willing to share and connect data. My network contains the extensive expertise of the institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, virtually all Dutch universities, most European national scientific academies, as well as the strength of commercial tech giants, large national internet service providers, and many small & medium businesses at home and abroad.
Personal
I was born in a family of entrepreneurs in general and military aviation, and developed a keen intuition for new (and often untraditional) opportunities at an early age, which led to my first enterprise washing cars on a weekly subscription basis when I was twelve 🙂 Today, I am married, have children and live in a trilingual family spending most of our time between the Netherlands and Italy.
My biggest hobbies are photography, mountain & sea adventures, and telling stories. You will encounter them all in my blogs.