After Booking, Tans takes the lead in the growth phase of VanMoof

If Gillian Tans, then operational director at Booking.com, can be promoted to general manager in 2016, she has no doubts. She skips the cruise to the United States on the occasion of her in-laws’ 50th anniversary, which has already been planned for five years – the family is going without her. Shortly after her appointment, she rents out her own villa in Amsterdam via Booking, to experience the rental process up close. One evening she is called around 11 p.m.: the guests cannot lock her door, or she can come and help.

The fifth chapter of the book The machine, about the successful e-commerce company, is entirely devoted to the former CEO of Booking. It paints an image of a woman whose life is inextricably intertwined with her work. Her work is her life. A trait she probably inherited from her father, who often worked late at night and on weekends as a Volvo importer. Tans, who was sidetracked at Booking in 2019 after three years on the board, is now taking over the day-to-day management of the fast-growing e-bike company VanMoof. A few years ago she was already one of the first investors in the Amsterdam bicycle manufacturer.

Growing companies

VanMoof is a lot smaller than Booking, is not yet profitable and is in the middle of a growth phase (from 10 million euros in turnover in 2018 to 75 million in 2021). The contrast with her previous employer seems great, but this is not the first time that Tans has started working for a still growing company. The director, who grew up in the Betuwe, started at Booking in 2002 in the hotel department when the company was still a messy start-up with a few dozen employees.

“Gillian is someone who likes to be challenged,” says Pepijn Rijvers, former marketing director at Booking and one of Tans’ confidants there. He thinks that Tans’ decision to lead VanMoof – she no longer held a top position since she left in 2019 – stems from this. “She doesn’t have to do it for the income. She just really likes growing companies.”

Yet it was precisely in the period of (too) great growth that things went wrong for Tans at Booking: the top of the American parent company and its shareholders demanded that the lightning-fast growth of Booking continue, while the staff at the head office in Amsterdam longed for the human measure. Neither group could satisfy Tans. There was a lot of dissatisfaction among employees because of the workload; they sometimes felt like a tiny cog in a big, raging machine. A multi-million dollar company – but lacking the professional procedures and the way of working of a start-up. Tans was the main driver of the growth, but under her rule Booking’s ‘family culture’ crumbled.

Long waiting times

Tans’ task at VanMoof is clear: the company is struggling with technical defects and long waiting times for bicycle repairs and new bicycles. It is not her fault that the problems at Booking could not be solved under her leadership, says Rijvers. “Every company has better and lesser phases.” There is no reason to assume that VanMoof will not succeed. “The problems there require strong execution – that’s where Gillian’s strength lies. And she has a lot of experience with it, she has worked the longest as operational director within Booking. She will be like a fish in water.”

In any case, VanMoof has a modest top woman in Tans: at Booking she came to work by bike, with wet hair and in a rain suit when it rained. She turned down a car with a driver. Who knows, she may soon be cycling to her new workplace on her electric VanMoof.