Bob de Leeuw has always had an affinity for IT. He started as a math teacher and then moved on to programming, but he missed out on the field’s evolution. After a stint as a developer, he advanced to become a manager and project leader on both the supply and demand sides. A degree in computer science and an MBA propelled him into management and consulting. Eventually, he became the CIO at Riwal, which was acquired by Boels in mid-2024. Since April, he has sat on the Boels Group Management Board. And recently, he has been nominated for the CIO of the Year Award.

What is the biggest challenge your organization is facing?
“Since its founding in 1977, Boels has grown from a local rental company into one of the largest rental companies in Europe. This development—driven by organic growth and acquisitions—has brought together various working methods, processes, and systems: in addition to renting tools and machinery, the company also offers many specialized services for specific industries. This has led to increased complexity in processes, organizational structures, and systems.

How can we simplify things? On the one hand, you want to standardize operations from headquarters. But without creating a bureaucratic process that makes things more difficult for the local branches—our so-called depots. For many customers, these are the first point of contact; they can pick up products directly, including larger machines such as aerial work platforms. How can we ensure that the process steps and procedures we impose from headquarters don’t hinder local operations and entrepreneurship?

The challenge is to maintain the speed of a speedboat at the local level, while we continue to automate and standardize the “mothership.” It is precisely local entrepreneurship that has made us strong. But we want to eliminate the waste from all processes that aren’t close to the customer, by centralizing finance, fleet procurement, IT, and HR. This way, local teams can focus on operations.

We recently launched a program called “Make Rental Easy,” which takes an outside-in approach to everything we do. We’re going to simplify the process steps and systems required for rentals for employees at the depots. That’s a shift from a product-focused rental company to a solutions-based rental company. To do that, we need to prepare our employees and the organization.

“The challenge is to maintain the speedboat’s agility at the local level, while we continue to automate and standardize the mother ship”

Riwal was about seven times smaller, so IT was very closely integrated with operations. At Boels, there’s more distance between the IT department and operations. We rarely saw our IT colleagues at the depots. I was told time and again: “The business decides; we execute.” As a former consultant, I couldn’t believe that. You actually need to engage with the business, understand their challenges, and proactively contribute ideas and make suggestions. As IT professionals, we need to get to know, understand, and fully grasp the business processes.

But not everyone in operations knows what IT can do to help them move forward. The challenge, then, is to bridge that gap and encourage the IT department to think more “outside-in.” So instead of simply implementing a requested solution, we need to ask probing questions—to arrive at the right solution together. I invested a lot of time in that within the IT department. I coached people there and, together with the operational excellence department, strengthened governance to ensure we make investments that deliver the most business value.”

How would you describe your leadership style?
“I’m a huge sports fan. I played soccer at a high level and also got pretty far in judo. So I love sports metaphors. Due to the acquisitions, we had five departments working on IT and digital, and we consolidated them into a single central IT department. Together with my management team, I developed the vision for the future and the IT strategy, carefully assessing what talent was available and how best to utilize it. We’re now taking steps to elevate our execution capabilities and professionalism to the next level. What do you call this kind of leadership? Transformational? I think it’s very important to show people where we’re going and why—what the benefits are. So a term like “connector” would be appropriate. Just like with a soccer team, you have to bring the right people together. As a coach, you reflect and ask questions. That’s kind of my style.”

The CIO role is also changing. How do you see this?
“The focus depends on the type and size of the company. Due to the acquisitions, we’ve recently invested time in consolidating and standardizing our systems and applications so the organization can continue to grow. We must be fit for growth. In addition to getting things in order for a scalable application infrastructure, as a CIO, you’re expected to leverage new technology for innovation and digitization and to contribute ideas on business challenges.

If you’re further along in that transformation—like my former colleague Aart Rupert at Damen Shipyards—you can start focusing on the business side. As CDO, Aart has turned his focus to the business and the physical product, working on things like digital twins and connected ships. At the time, the focus at Damen was on setting up the IT department and professionalizing the application landscape. But this varies by company and sector.”

Technological developments are almost impossible to keep up with. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
“I recently gave an IT update to the Board of Supervisors, and I was asked the same question. You see the same patterns repeating across all technologies. First, there’s hype—everyone has an opinion, but no one knows exactly what it is. Then the experts come out with their publications, while companies still don’t know how to get started.

Next, you see experiments: “flash-in-the-pan” use cases, but no solid foundation yet. You’re seeing that with AI right now, too. And then the same issues come into play—security, privacy, and different payment and billing models. Just like with the introduction of the cloud: paying per dataset or per gigabyte. Now you’re seeing that with token-based billing in AI. Discussing these issues with your peers is incredibly helpful.

Together with the business, we always ask three questions: Does this technology solve a business problem? Can we apply it beyond one business unit? And what business value does it deliver? If the answers aren’t clear, we’ll pass on it for now.

At Boels, our physical equipment rental business involves many sectors: construction, civil engineering, industry, infrastructure, facility services, and events. Each sector has its own level of digital maturity and characteristics. It’s very different from high-tech companies, pension funds, or banks. But one thing remains the same: Boels makes equipment available to everyone, wherever and whenever it’s needed.

“Together with the business, we always ask three questions: Does this technology solve a business problem? Can we also apply it to other units? And what value does it deliver?”

So you tailor your digitalization strategy, digital production, and services to the sector and customer needs. That’s very different from a company whose core business is offering digital products. Such a company has to respond much more quickly to new technology. But we can learn a lot from their success stories.

I watch and read a lot and try to keep up with everything. On the other hand, you have to keep the event offerings from IT companies at arm’s length a bit, otherwise they’ll fill up your entire calendar… That’s why I’m very selective about attending sessions by software vendors or trade shows—because that’s when I get the most out of it. Fortunately, I also have several people at Boels who are moving much faster in this area than I ever have. That’s great to see.”

Do you think more intensive collaboration among CIOs could help?
“Yes, through the CIO Platform Nederland, we now have many sessions with each other. You also run into the CIOs of our clients or competitors there. What I really like is that we’re willing to take this on. As an IT consultant, I hadn’t really realized that to the same extent before. Recently, we had a session at one of our peers’ offices. We do these with the doors closed. A CIO describes the problem his organization is facing, and then he gets free advice from ten other CIOs—the kind of advice you’d pay 250 euros an hour for at a management consultancy. And through these conversations, you mainly learn how things have been handled elsewhere. That’s extremely valuable; you learn a tremendous amount from it.

But for me, the value also lies in the people you gather around you—new talent who bring knowledge and experience—as well as in the selective choice of your suppliers and partners. We’re in the middle of an outsourcing process with a major IT partner. As a result, we’re also getting a technology push that we couldn’t have achieved on our own.”

What are you proud of?
“At Boels, I demonstrated that technology isn’t an isolated topic. IT was often viewed as a cost center that was simply expected to deliver. Our IT team was always very focused on the technical side: infrastructure, workstations, and applications. The question of what business value an application actually delivers wasn’t asked often enough. We’ve made the shift, but we’re not there yet. Sessions, town halls, and coaching help raise awareness.

I call this “outside-in thinking,” and I’m very consciously steering the organization in that direction. The real transformation isn’t in technology. Transformation lies on the path from merely implementing solutions to understanding business problems, asking probing questions, and working together to implement the right solutions. The fact that my IT team has also taken ownership of this is what I’m most proud of.”