Tim Rutten

My name is Tim and I’m the EVP, Chief of Staff at Backbase. I'm really keen to connect with the CoS community to learn and compare notes, share best-practices and find (even more) inspiration in this role. I've been in this type of role for 5+ years now so I'd happily share my experiences with others. What is Backbase? # Backbase is a software company, that built the world’s leading Digital Banking Platform (whitelabeled to 150+ banks globally for powering their digital channels). # We’re usually the driving force behind an incumbent bank’s digital transformation, as the platform of choice - leapfrogging them by at least 5 years of not reinventing the wheel (e.g. if they self build, they will reinvent what we already have industrialised for them). Example customers: ABN Amro, Natwest, Royal Bank of Canada, HSBC, Pictet, Navy Federal Credit Union etc. # We’re an Amsterdam-founded and still completely privately-held PaaS / SaaS company. Yes we did a funding round of $120mio last year, but that was just to fortify the balance sheet. We’re a break-even business / moving to profitability again in Q3 < all of this by design. The Founder/CEO is building the company already for 20 years, is a visionary leader and incredibly passionate. So who is Tim in Backbase? # I’ve been with Backbase now for 9+ years, where I’ve been working alongside the Founder/CEO growing the business from merely 10mio ARR all the way to the 250mio ARR of today. We’re on track to double this around 2026. Good fun! # In all growth cycles I’ve been able to grow along, I ran departments (e.g. Solutions Engineering, Strategy and ad interim CMO for 2 years) to either just close the gap and/or to grow my experience and follow whatever I was passionate about at that point in my career. Primary starting point has always been: what’s going to grow the business? # As of start of 2023, we finally completed the C-suite, which allowed me to literally work alongside the CEO as the CoS (which I was already informally doing next to my usual roles in the management team). As CoS can be interpreted as EA/PA, and I’m certainly not, we agreed that this is a a full-swing C-level role, and hence it’s EVP CoS. # I’m based out of beautiful Haarlem in the Netherlands, close to the beach, together with my wife and 2 daughters.