Cees has a long history in the real estate and building industry and is currently working for EDGE (an OVG Real Estate company), a leading real estate tech company from The Netherlands and rapidly growing in Europe and United States. After a long career abroad when working for corporate companies in the international construction industry (Italy, The Netherlands, Scandinavia), he became an expert in design, architecture and sustainability.
Cees joined OVG Real Estate 13 years ago to be the head of the Sustainability Center. His first project was the first LEED Platinum TNT HQ and the first sustainable lab/office/factory, the Danone Innovation Center, both initiated by his team. The well-known office building The Edge in Amsterdam was the best example of smart and sustainable development and become a blueprint of the future of working and according to BREEAM, the most sustainable office building in the world.
Today Cees is one of the initiators of the new company EDGE Technologies, a tech scale-up of OVG. With (future) EDGE buildings in Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and Boston, this seems to be the answer to disrupt the global real estate market, focused on EDGE’s main pillar: sustainability, well-being and technology.
Cees is member of Dutch Architecture Circle, founder of the Archiprix International, member of Corenet Global, Dutch Green Building Council (DGBC) and co-chair of the Technology in Real Estate Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Moreover, Cees is active in the Future of Construction group of World Economic Forum (WEF). He gave lectures at the Technical University in Delft, University of London, University of Brussels, NOAH, European Committee and many other platforms and lately he moderated the Future of Work webinars for EDGE with thought leaders like Bjarke Ingels (BIG), Joseph Allen (Harvard), Carlo Ratti (MIT) and Rick Fedrizzi (IWBI).