Product operations is having its moment.

What was once a niche function buried inside a handful of fast-scaling tech companies has become one of the most talked-about disciplines in modern product organizations. And this May, Amsterdam becomes the epicenter of that conversation.

On May 28–29 at the Postillion Hotel & Convention Centre, the Product Operations Summit Amsterdam brings together some of Europe's sharpest product ops minds for two days of sessions, panels, workshops, and the kind of honest conversations that only happen when the right people are in the same room.

We've already confirmed a seriously strong lineup – and rather than just listing names, we want you to know who these people are and what they're bringing to the stage. Here's your intro:

Yulia Ershova – Director of Product Operations, Semrush

Session: From chaos to cadence: Building a product ops function from scratch

Yulia knows what it's like to start from zero. As Director of Product Operations at Semrush, she's built the entire product ops function from the ground up – working at the intersection of product, analytics, and operations to help teams make better decisions and stay aligned as they scale.

Her opening session tackles a common question in product ops: where do you even begin? She'll walk through the signals that a team is ready for product ops, the problems it's built to solve, and a practical framework for what to prioritize first – so the function earns trust quickly and keeps growing from there.

Maarten Peters – Senior Product Operations Manager, Groendus

Session: From data to decisions: How product ops drives impact

Maarten works at the data-rich end of product operations – helping teams cut through noise and turn metrics into meaningful action. At Groendus, he's focused on making sure product decisions are grounded in evidence, not instinct alone.

His talk explores how product ops can become the connective tissue between data and decision-making across the product org. Expect practical frameworks for making your data work harder, and honest insights on what gets in the way.

Evgeniy Labunskiy – Director of Product Operations, Nova Poshta

Session: Designing for scale: Product and engineering collaboration patterns

Evgeniy comes with serious scale credentials. At Nova Poshta, he leads product operations across a function that has to keep product and engineering teams moving in sync, fast, and at considerable scale.

His session digs into the collaboration patterns that hold up under pressure: the operating rhythms, communication structures, and shared rituals that keep product and engineering aligned without slowing each other down.

If you've ever watched cross-functional collaboration break down at scale, this one's for you.

Kaia Hillier – Director of Product Operations, Epidemic Sound

Panel: Embedding product ops – driving alignment across teams

Kaia has built product ops inside Epidemic Sound, the Stockholm-based music licensing platform that powers billions of video views every day. She knows what it takes to embed a product ops function in a fast-moving, creative-tech business where the stakes for alignment are sky-high.

Her experience making product ops stick – not just on paper, but in the day-to-day behaviors of teams – makes her a natural voice on the thorniest question in the discipline: how do you get the rest of the organization to embrace product operations?

Kaia joins Zeeshan Saeed on the Embedding product ops panel to unpack what "embedding" really means in practice – the politics, the quick wins, and the longer game.

Daniella Gammon – Product Operations Manager, Ahold Delhaize

Interactive roundtable discussions

At Ahold Delhaize – one of Europe's largest food and retail groups – product ops has to function across a genuinely complex, multi-brand, multi-market organization. Getting clarity and alignment at that scale is no small thing.

Daniella hosts a mid-morning roundtable discussion alongside Bogdan Moroz – a smaller, more candid format designed for digging into the specifics of your own situation.

Bogdan Moroz – Product Manager, Observis Oy

Interactive roundtable discussions

Bogdan rounds out the roundtable with an operational consulting perspective – a lens that sits outside any single company's product org, making for an interesting and insightful conversation.

He joins Daniella Gammon for what should be one of the more free-ranging discussions of the day.

Suneal Rao – Director, eCommerce, AI Products, and Data & Analytics, The Heineken Company

Session: Know your customer: Redefining product ops metrics for internal and external products

Suneal has worked across both consumer-facing and internal product contexts, which gives him a sharp view of how the metrics that matter shift dramatically depending on who your product is for.

His session challenges product ops teams to think more carefully about what they measure – and why "one-size-fits-all" frameworks almost always miss the point.

Wesley Swildens – Head of Portfolio Netherlands, SD Worx

Session: Operationalizing value: How product ops connects product to business impact

Wesley operates at the org-design end of product operations. At SD Worx – a major European HR and payroll platform – he leads portfolio management for the Netherlands, overseeing how product strategy translates into real business outcomes through thoughtful operating structures.

His talk goes after a fundamental question in product ops: how do you prove that what you're doing moves the needle for the business? Wesley will share how product ops can become the function that connects product decisions to commercial results – not just facilitates meetings.

Rahul Bhattacharya – Product Strategy and Operations, Commercetools

Session: The prod ops lever for architecting organizational value capture

Rahul brings deep strategic and operational experience from Commercetools – one of Europe's leading composable commerce platforms – plus prior product ops stints at Delivery Hero.

His session explores how product ops can become a lever for organizational value capture – not just a support function, but a strategic capability that shapes how value flows through the whole business. It's a more ambitious framing of what product ops is for, and Rahul is discuss it.

Koen Dubelaar – VP Product Operations, Backbase

Fireside chat: From strategy to execution: Lessons in maturing product operating models

Koen is an experienced product ops practitioner in the Netherlands – and this closing fireside is the session he was made for.

Before his current VP role at Backbase (the Amsterdam-headquartered banking platform), he spent four years leading product operations at Delivery Hero across APAC, Turkey, and Europe – covering hundreds of engineers on the consumer platform. He's a proven thought leader on what it takes to scale product ops inside a complex, fast-moving organization.

His thesis for this session is one the whole industry needs to hear: a well-designed operating model isn't enough on its own. The real challenge is the organizational maturity and behaviors needed to make it work – and Koen has the stories to back that up. He's joined for the fireside by Elise Takkenberg.

Elise Takkenberg – Product Operations Lead, Awin Global

Fireside chat: From strategy to execution: Lessons in maturing product operating models

Elise is a thoughtful voice on target operating models and product transformation in the Dutch tech ecosystem. At Awin Global – the affiliate marketing platform – she leads product operations with a focus on how teams actually behave inside an operating model, not just how it looks on paper.

That lens makes her the ideal partner for Koen Dubelaar in the day-one closing fireside. Together they'll explore how product organizations shift from output tracking to evidence-based decisions, from alignment theater to real autonomy – and how product ops leaders can drive that evolution without creating the very bureaucracy they're trying to get rid of.

Marija Kordumova Puroski – Senior Director, Product Operations, WPP

Panel: Scaling product operations – structuring for speed, scale, and an AI-first future

Marija brings a global perspective to this conversation. At Choreograph – WPP's data and technology company – she's driving product operations across a multi-market, enterprise-scale organization that has to move fast without losing coherence. 

Her background spans Studyportals in Eindhoven and Upwork, giving her an international lens on what it means to scale product ops across very different business contexts.

She joins Ron Bruinen, Kiratpal Randhawa, and Patrick Chontovski on the Scaling product operations panel – four practitioners tackling the same big question from very different angles.

Ron Bruinen – Product Operations Manager, DPG Media

Panel: Scaling product operations – structuring for speed, scale, and an AI-first future

Ron brings the Dutch perspective – and a track record across some of the most recognizable names in the Benelux. His product ops experience spans Albert Heijn, ING, Felyx, and now DPG Media. He knows what it takes to keep product ops working inside large, complex organizations where speed isn't always the default.

He joins Marija Kordumova Puroski, Kiratpal Randhawa, and Patrick Chontovski on the Scaling product operations panel to share what's worked at scale – and what hasn't.

Kiratpal Randhawa – Director of Product Operations, Reward Gateway

Panel: Scaling product operations – structuring for speed, scale, and an AI-first future

Kiratpal runs product operations at Reward Gateway, the employee engagement platform, with a sharp focus on cross-functional efficiency and delivering at speed. 

His experience in a product-led business makes him a strong voice on the AI-first angle of this panel – where the question isn't just how to scale, but how to scale intelligently as the tooling landscape shifts beneath your feet.

He joins Marija Kordumova Puroski, Ron Bruinen, and Patrick Chontovski for what promises to be a practically grounded session.

Patrick Chontovski – Director of Product Operations, Tide

Panel: Scaling product operations – structuring for speed, scale, and an AI-first future

Patrick leads product ops at Tide, the UK fintech built for small businesses, with 11+ years of experience managing international teams across multiple sectors. 

Bridging operations and product in a high-growth fintech context means dealing with pace, complexity, and constant change all at once – which is exactly the kind of experience this panel needs.

He rounds out the Scaling product operations panel alongside Marija Kordumova Puroski, Ron Bruinen, and Kiratpal Randhawa.

Louis Tissot – Head of Product, Revo

Session: Skip the trial-and-error: Measure the true ROI of AI integration

Louis has an interesting origin story for a product ops leader: seven years at Uber across operations and product, then Group Product Operations Manager at Deel, to Head of Product at Revo. He's been inside the engine room of fast-moving, global operations.

His talk goes after one of the most common AI adoption problems right now: organizations jumping into AI tooling without a clear framework for knowing whether it's actually working. Louis will share how product ops can lead the charge on measuring real AI ROI – not just tracking adoption metrics that look good on a slide.

If your org is experimenting with AI workflows (and whose isn't?), this session will help you cut through the noise.

Ricardo Pinho – Senior Central Operations Manager, Uber

Session: From support function to force multiplier: AI in product operations

Ricardo brings the Uber perspective – which means he's seen AI tooling tested at a scale most companies will never approach. As Senior Central Operations Manager, he sits at the intersection of product, ops, and AI implementation in an operationally complex environment.

His session frames product ops as something more than a coordination function: it's a force multiplier when AI is embedded thoughtfully into its core workflows. 

Expect honest examples of what actually changes – and what doesn't – when product ops teams start working with AI as a genuine collaborator rather than a bolt-on tool.

Why Amsterdam, why now

Product operations is growing up fast. The conversations happening in Amsterdam this May reflect where the function is heading: beyond team facilitation and into organizational influence, beyond process design and into AI-enabled transformation.

The speakers above aren't here to talk theory. They've built these functions, made the mistakes, found what works, and scaled it. Two days in Amsterdam is your chance to learn from all of them – and have the kind of honest conversations that don't usually happen at other events.

Will we see you in Amsterdam?

👉 Secure your ticket

Product Operations Summit Amsterdam takes place May 28–29, 2026 at the Postillion Hotel & Convention Centre, 9-11 Paul van Vlissingenstraat, Amsterdam. And is co-located with Product-Led Summit Amsterdam.