I don’t run companies by controlling execution.
I run them by making direction explicit.

My role is best described as a coach, an on-field striker with a free role, and the skipper of a competitive sailing team, all at once.

I set the course.
I create clarity when things get ambiguous.
I step into the game only when it matters.

At Nlockd, that translates into building a decision intelligence layer for digital commerce. Not another tool. Not another dashboard. But a system that forces choices to become explicit before automation, optimization or scaling even starts.

I surround myself with people who are better than me at their craft, engineering, data, product, operations. My job is not to out-execute them. My job is to make sure they are playing the same game, toward the same objective, with clear boundaries and ownership.

I’m optimistic by default, but not naive.
Opportunistic, but allergic to chaos.
Always solution-oriented, but only after the real problem is understood.

I believe most companies don’t fail because of lack of data or talent.
They fail because decisions stay implicit, political, or endlessly postponed.

That’s the gap I work in.
Making decisions visible, defensible, and durable.

Founder & CEO at Nlockd.
Decision intelligence for digital commerce.


Rob Gent

There’s a version of entrepreneurship people like to sell.
Either you work 24/7, 365 days a year.
Or you have total freedom.

Both are lies.

The first years are hard. Really hard.
But sacrificing everything does not make you serious.
It just makes you tired.

I’ve walked away from opportunities that looked good on paper.
Revenue. Growth. Momentum.

Not because they weren’t attractive.
But because they violated clarity, or cost more at home than they returned at work.

I want to build something big.
And still bring my kids to school.
Still have breakfast together.
Still be home for dinner most days.

That trade-off is not accidental.
It’s a decision I keep making, even when it’s uncomfortable.

You don’t “find” balance later.
You design for it early, or you never get it.

Rob van Gent

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Most of my important decisions don’t happen in meetings.
They happen when I walk.

Not because walking is magical.
But because it removes noise.

When I’m sitting, everything feels urgent.
Slack. Email. Opinions. Context switching.

After about 30 minutes of walking, something shifts.

What felt complex becomes binary.
What felt heavy becomes obvious.
What felt urgent usually isn’t.

By the end of an hour, I don’t have more ideas.
I have fewer.

And the decision is usually already made.

I’ve learned to trust that signal more than any deck or discussion.

Clarity doesn’t come from pushing harder.
It comes from creating space where thinking can finish.

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Most digital commerce strategies are narratives, not commitments.

“We believe marketplaces are important.”
“We want to expand internationally.”
“AI should help us scale.”

None of these are decisions.

A decision has a cost.
A trade off.
Something you are willing not to do.

If your strategy does not force you to say no, it is not a strategy.
It is a story you tell yourself to keep moving.

The hardest part of my work isn’t AI, data, or technology.
It’s forcing decisions.

I deliberately stay out of execution.
Not because execution isn’t important.

But because execution without direction is expensive noise.

Most organizations don’t need better tools.
They need fewer unanswered questions.

Once decisions are explicit,
systems make sense,
AI has boundaries,
and scale becomes intentional.

Until then, every optimization is cosmetic.

Clarity is uncomfortable.
But indecision is far more expensive.

“We’ll figure it out later” is the most expensive sentence in digital commerce.

Later turns into:
Permanent workarounds.
Manual exceptions.
Shadow processes.
Custom logic no one understands.

Eventually, the organization adapts around the ambiguity.
And calls that maturity.

By the time scale arrives, it is too late.
The uncertainty is already embedded in systems.

You are no longer avoiding a decision.
You are maintaining it.

Digital commerce doesn’t fail on execution.
It fails on decisions that were never made.

Most brands don’t struggle because they lack tools, people, or ambition.

They struggle because they start executing while core questions remain unanswered:

Which markets actually deserve focus?
Which channels are strategic, and which are defensive?
Which products should scale, and which should be protected?

Execution starts anyway.
Because doing something feels better than deciding something.

Complexity grows.
Teams compensate.
Dashboards multiply.

And when AI is added, the problem doesn’t disappear.
It accelerates.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not early.
You’re already late.

Three reasons digital commerce decisions keep getting postponed.

No comparability across markets
Leaders can’t see trade-offs clearly, so they wait.

No ownership of consequences
If no one owns the downside, no one decides.

No boundaries defined
Without clear limits, every option feels risky.

Insight doesn’t unblock decisions by itself.
Structure does.

Most “strategy discussions” are actually decision avoidance.

I see leadership teams talk for months about:

Data gaps
Alignment
Market uncertainty
Tooling limitations

But very few conversations end with an explicit decision.

Why?

Because deciding means accepting downside.
And most organizations are optimized to avoid that.

So discussions continue.
Reports get refined.
Pilots are launched.

But nothing is formally stopped, started, or owned.

If nothing is explicitly decided,
everything is implicitly decided.

And implicit decisions scale faster than explicit ones.

I’ve yet to see a multi-market brand with a clear channel thesis.

What I usually see instead:

One country treating marketplaces as a growth engine
Another avoiding them to protect retail relationships
A third experimenting “locally” without central visibility

Not because this was strategically chosen.
But because it historically evolved that way.

When asked why, the answer is rarely commercial.
It’s organizational.

No one owns the trade-off.
So no one makes it explicit.

The result is not flexibility.
It’s inconsistency disguised as autonomy.

“We need more insight” is often code for
“we don’t want to choose.”

Lack of data is rarely the real blocker.

What I usually see is something else:
No one has defined what an acceptable downside looks like.

So decisions get postponed until:
More data is available
More alignment is reached
More certainty exists

But certainty never arrives in complex systems.

At some point, asking for more insight stops being rational.
It becomes a way to avoid responsibility.

Leadership teams rarely disagree on data.
They disagree on who gets to decide.

When decision rights are unclear:
Meetings get longer
Reports get heavier
Pilots replace commitments

Not because people are incompetent.
But because responsibility is diffuse.

Clear decision rights don’t slow organizations down.
They prevent silent paralysis.

Most “complexity” is just unowned choice.

For years I asked companies which tools they used.

PIMs.
Marketplaces.
Dashboards.
Automation.
AI.

It never explained why things felt out of control.

The moment I started asking a different question, everything changed:

“What have you actually decided?”

That is where the real problems surfaced.
Not louder. Just clearer.

Ten questions most eCommerce organizations cannot answer cleanly:

1. Which channels are we deliberately not pursuing, and why?
2. Who owns margin decisions across channels?
3. Where does automation stop and human judgment begin?
4. What trade offs are we knowingly accepting?
5. Which KPIs are descriptive, not decision driving?
6. Who can say no to a new channel launch?
7. What behavior are our tools silently enforcing?
8. Which decisions are reversible, and which are not?
9. What has never been decided, only inherited?
10. Who is accountable when everything goes wrong?

If these answers are fuzzy, your problem is not tooling.
It is decision ownership.

Most brands don’t suffer from a lack of data.
They suffer from a lack of decision rights.

Dashboards show performance.
They don’t say who gets to decide when trade-offs appear.

So decisions bounce between:
Local teams
Central leadership
External partners

Until urgency forces action.

By then, the cost of waiting is already baked in.

Digital commerce does not fail because of bad tools.

It fails because decisions are never made explicit.

Most organizations believe they have a strategy. What they actually have is a collection of assumptions that were never written down, never challenged, and never owned.

So decisions get made anyway.
By tools.
By defaults.
By agencies.
By whoever shouts loudest in the meeting.

That is not strategy.
That is drift.

Until decisions are explicit, scale does not create control.
It creates fragility.

A roadmap without decision ownership is just a calendar.

It creates the illusion of progress without resolving anything fundamental.

Features get planned.
Markets get added.
Integrations get built.

But no one can answer:
Who owns the outcome when this fails?

Roadmaps feel safe.
Decisions feel exposed.

That is why most organizations prefer the first.

Alignment sessions fail for a simple reason.

They try to align people before aligning decisions.

You can get everyone in a room.
You can nod.
You can agree.

But if decision rights are unclear, alignment evaporates the moment pressure returns.

Clarity beats consensus.
Every time.

Category Manager met 10 jaar ervaring in de wereld van Travel Retail en verantwoordelijk voor de groepen Sport, Souvenirs & Gifts. Verantwoordelijk voor het gehele traject van ontwikkeling, inkoop t/m presentatie in de winkels. 

Samen met mijn team van 4 collega's een leuk, verrassend maar vooral commercieel assortiment neer zetten. Verantwoordelijk voor zo'n 20 winkels in verschillende landen in Europa.
Verantwoordelijk voor alle merchandise van de Keukenhof inclusief de presentatie in alle 10 winkels.

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