About
I'm Roel Willems. I work on both sides of data and AI decisions: with supervisory boards and executive teams who make them, and with the data and AI leaders who have to deliver them. Through Roel Willems Advisory, I work on data and AI strategy, governance, operating models and regulation.
What I've built
Before starting my practice, I spent eleven years at Ahold Delhaize and Albert Heijn. At group level I set the enterprise data strategy and built data management and AI governance where neither existed; both are now in use across 17 brands in 9 countries in Europe and the US. Some of what that work produced:
- The path from AI proposal to approved decision went from months to weeks, because every risk level now has a named decision-maker.
- Seven EU brands reached EU AI Act readiness.
- The EU data operating model was redesigned for the move from decentralized to federated, from mandate to decision-ready design in five months.
- At Albert Heijn, I built and led analytics, data science and experimentation teams of more than 30 people, and cut out-of-stocks by more than 20%.
Before that, I spent six years in consulting, running client mandates in energy, finance, telecom and the public sector. View my full experience →
How I see it
Governance is not the brake on data and AI. Done well, it is where the speed comes from: most delay in AI work is not engineering time but waiting for someone to decide, and a team that knows its boundaries is not in that queue.
The hard problems sit where business, legal and technology meet. They rarely get solved from one of those sides alone, which is why I work across all three.
How I work
Engagements have a clear outcome and a clear end. The goal is an organization that can run it without me. Besides advisory, I speak at conferences and run executive sessions for boards and leadership teams.
Next step
If something here is close to what you're dealing with, book a 30-minute call. No pitch, no deck.
Or start with my essays, Data & AI: What Matters & Why.