Welcome to our latest meet the team blog.

Welcome to our latest meet the team blog. Today we introduce Lis de Geus who recently joined Bedford as our first team member in The Netherlands. Lis, a Professional Services Consultant, is a Brazilian living in The Netherlands and loving it (despite the challenges of learning the Dutch language). In her spare time, she loves to cook and bake, and has a passion for calligraphy and lettering (or pretty much any handcraft). She’s always adventuring into new art mediums, most recently having painted a colourful mural in her own bedroom.

What made you consider joining Bedford?

I had been working with Anaplan for 4 years as part of customer teams. I was looking to join a consultancy that would allow me exposure to a range of different clients, industries and use cases so I could continue developing my Anaplan skills. Also, it was really important to me to find an open, friendly group of people from diverse backgrounds and nationalities. I seem to have found all of that at Bedford.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of being a part of such an amazing team of Anaplanners. It’s truly humbling to see how much experience and knowledge is shared between the whole team and how that translates to excellent service to our customers.

What’s your favourite part of working at Bedford?

Definitely the people – it’s an open, friendly, diverse and humble group that make great colleagues to work with, from the leadership team to the newest hire.

Describe Bedford in three words

Inclusive, Excellence, Experienced

What’s the company like? How would you describe the team culture?

From day one, you can tell that the company values are a true part of everyone’s way of working. Even the most experienced team members are always humble and ready to help and support you in any way. Even though we’re all physically in different places, we manage to stay connected in many different ways (with our coffee roulettes or lunch & learn sessions or just by giving someone a call to say hello).

How would you describe a typical day?

It really depends on the project or client you are working on (which makes it extra fun for me). Usually, we’d have a daily meeting in the morning to catch up with the rest of the team on what was done in the previous day, as well as the plans for the current day. We’d then have a mix of either meetings with the client to align on specific topics, or focused time when we build the models.

What did you wish you knew before joining?

When going through the interviews, you often hear a lot of things about how the company and the culture is, but you can never really be sure how much of that you will actually see in the day-to-day after you start work. Well, I wish I’d known I could trust what was presented to me, because I really see the culture and values in all my colleagues.

What’s the most important skill that someone will need to succeed as a consultant?

I’m still learning that myself, but I believe agility to be an important quality for a consultant. Not only agility to move between different projects during the week, but also agility to respond to change requests and business needs within a project. I’d say this is what makes the job both interesting and challenging.

What is the biggest challenge that someone in this position would face?

Probably repeating my answer, but indeed the constant changes within a project as well as juggling between different projects at the same time. However there is plenty of support from the team to manage any challenges that arise.

What have you learned in the last six months?

While I’ve worked with Anaplan for 4 years now as an in-house resource, I’ve been learning how things work from the consultancy and implementation side. It’s definitely a different position to be in, but I’m confident I can bring what I’ve learned as an in-house Anaplanner to be a better consultant.

Why do you stay at Bedford?

The culture and values of the company really align with my personal ones, which is what I look most for in the company I work for. In addition, Bedford provides the opportunities for me to continue developing my expertise, by exposing me to different industries and use cases and to a team of so many talented colleagues.

Stay tuned for our next meet the team blog. We’re hiring! For more information on our open roles visit our careers page.