10:30 - 11:00 Round 1: Breakout Sessions

Rick and Koen

The commerce landscape is buzzing with transformative technologies like agentic commerce, LLMs, AI solutions and ACP/UCP. It feels revolutionary, but is it truly new? While the playing field of commerce constantly evolves, the fundamental rules of the game for success remain remarkably consistent. This session challenges the conventional wisdom that you need to structure teams and agency partnerships around accelerating new channels. 

Koen Ouwens  – Director Commerce Performance, VML 

Rick van der Vlugt – Product & Experience Director, VML  

The real secret to future-proofing your business isn't about the playing field but understanding the unchanging rules of the game

Building the Blueprint

Discover how to organise your teams for channel independence and focus relentlessly on Commerce Performance. This enables you to not only secure your targets right now, but also build an adaptive, resilient engine ready for whatever comes next. 

You’ll learn:

  • How to prioritize and protect the unchanging rules for commerce success.
  • What a truly ‘channel independent’ and performant commerce organisation looks like.
  • How to effectively work with external partners in this changing landscape.
  • Key techniques for measuring success and ROI for new commerce technologies and organisational changes.

About the speaker

Koen Ouwens is Director Commerce Performance at VML with over 15 years of experience building performance-driven digital commerce operations across D2C, marketplace and omnichannel retail. He leads teams that have delivered EUR 500M+ in incremental revenue for brands including Ahold Delhaize, JDE, Lotus Cars, Pon and Unilever, always accountable to the same number as the client.

Rick van der Vlugt is a Product Experience Director at VML with over 13 years of experience in digital product and e-commerce. He has worked with organisations including Ahold, Patagonia, G‑Star RAW, Bol.com, citizenM, Brocacef Group, ING and Hunkemöller. His work focuses on product strategy, customer experience (CX), and digital operations, with a strong track record in product delivery and developing teams’ digital capabilities.

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