Wouter Merkestein

Wouter Merkestein is the CEO of laiout. Wouter has over six years of experience in business development and operations management.

Merkestein began their career as a Business Development Project Manager for Arriva Group in Spain. Wouter was responsible for delivering new mobility solutions for both rural and urban areas. Wouter was also part of the tender team in terms of innovation and foreign best practices and they were a key liaison between the Spanish business and Arriva Group internationally.

In November 2013, Merkestein became the International Business Development Manager for IDS International - Healthcare Intelligence. In this role, they were responsible for developing new business opportunities and managing existing client relationships.

In September 2018, Merkestein left IDS to join Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) as their Senior Operations / Launch Manager. As Senior Operations Manager and Program Manager Europe, they were involved in scaling up Ola's (unicorn) ride hailing operations in Europe from scratch. Wouter was P&L responsible for some of Ola UK's biggest city clusters for which they managed a small team of superstars. Key activities included market research, launch strategies, liaising with private and public stakeholders, process optimization, recruiting and daily data-driven decision making to push for aggressive growth.

Merkestein joined laiout in September 2019 and became their CEO in 2020. Under their leadership, the company has seen significant growth and expansion.

Wouter Merkestein has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Business School, a Premaster Bedrijfskunde from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, and a Bachelor of Science (BSc) with distinction from De Haagse Hogeschool / The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Wouter also has a certification from the University of Alberta in Mountains 101 and a certification from Google in AdWords.

Isak Buhl-Mortensen - CTO, Cristiano Coretti - CPO report to Wouter Merkestein.