Valcon names Paul ten Haaf as leader of Southeast Europe region

Valcon has named Paul ten Haaf as its new Managing Partner for the Southeast Europe region.

One of the firm’s veteran leaders, Paul ten Haaf has been with Valcon since its inception, having been part of the founding team that launched Valcon in 2006 (at the time known as First Consulting). He has held leadership roles with the firm ever since.

“I spent the first decade or so on the business side, mainly focused on operational excellence and performance improvement in the energy & utilities sectors. Around 2012 we setup our technology consulting capability, and I became increasingly involved with this part of the business,” said Ten Haaf.

In his client work, Ten Haaf shifted his focus to helping enterprise clients and (semi) public organisations with their digitalisation journeys and innovation. “Smart automation and modern cloud platforms are my main areas of expertise.”

Ten Haaf eventually was appointed to leader of the Technology Consulting division, which he helped build out to its current size of around 350 consultants across offices in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

His latest appointment sees him assume responsibility for Valcon’s six IT delivery centres in Croatia and Serbia (‘Southeast Europe’), which combined have around 300 staff. This business provides nearshore technology services to clients and Valcon project teams in areas such as cloud (Azure), process automation (Appian, Pegasystems and Uipath) and low code development (Mendix, MS Power and SAP Business Technology Platform).

“As a true tech enthusiast, I’m thrilled to take on this role,” Ten Haaf stated. “I’ve had the pleasure to meet the Southeast Europe team on several occasions during the last couple of years, and their depth of knowledge in the latest digital technologies never ceases to impress me.”

Speaking about his ambition for the arm, he said the focus is on growth and building synergies between client-facing teams and the nearshore practice. “My aim is to weave our innovative tech solutions into every Valcon project to deliver real business value for our clients. We will, among other things, achieve this through rightshoring – combining on-the-ground expertise with remote support to deliver exactly what each project requires.”

Geert van den Goor, Managing Partner of Valcon, said: “With many years of consulting experience and a strong background in technology, Paul brings both expertise and a clear vision to his new role. His practical approach and technical insight make him ideally suited to lead our Southeast Europe organisation and enhance our presence in the market.”