Shaping a brighter future



Thursday, October 3, 2024

Anka Gajentaan is the Managing Director of Randstad Digital Netherlands. Randstad is the world's leading talent company and operates in 39 markets; in 2023, Randstad helped about 2 million people find a job. Across Randstad Digital’s markets, more than 25,000 digital talent work on client’s IT challenges. Anka shared her journey and how her passion for innovation led to one of her proudest achievements at the RightBrains Celebration Event this year. Thanks for your and Randstad Digital's ongoing support and for sharing your insights with us! 

Early adoption of tech’s potential

An interest in mathematical problem-solving and a passion for creating fresh and innovative solutions to problems have driven Anka all her life. When she stepped into the world of Computer Science as a fresh-faced student, she was not discouraged by how male-dominated her field of study was at the time. She remembers vividly what an impression it made on her that computers would one day be able to chat to each other, and the possibilities associated with this blew her mind. “I loved what I was learning and I realised immediately that technology had a tremendous role to play in shaping the future.”

Corporate change-maker and innovator

After her studies, Anka swiftly landed a position within the consultancy environment, where she learned a great deal about the industry and worked with many different organisations. Her career trajectory from there was not an intentional move towards a specific niche or specialisation, but a drive to bloom in the environment she was planted. “Wherever you land in the job market will feed you with a sense of what works for you and what doesn’t; the important thing is that you just have to take a leap and start someplace,” she explains. She has always garnered a lot of energy from working within a wider, collaborative team, and found it to be a challenging shift when she transitioned from management to leadership. “Leadership can be a little more lonely, but it’s important to remember that you still have peers within a larger organisation – peers you can learn from.” Even though it can be challenging to be a change-maker and innovator where the wheels of motion are sometimes slow to turn, Anka feels a great affinity towards large and complex corporate settings that hold a learning mindset, especially since technology is dynamic and ever-changing. 

Going beyond the pitch deck

Anka was one of the pioneers in the establishment of Randstad Digital, which she sees as one of the proudest achievements of her career. She helped bring to life this specialised business unit from initial boardroom conversations to refining a strategy, to her appointment as Managing Director. She is passionate about helping clients leverage the possibilities of modern technology in the process of digital transformation. “It’s one thing to prepare a deck for a client for a cloud migration, for example, and to decide which system goes into the cloud. But finding the talent to execute it well, is a whole other story,” she explains. She believes that Randstad Digital’s talent-driven approach is what makes it unique. “We understand the world of IT and are bringing this expertise to market to help companies, clients, and talent to grow,” she adds. As a female leader, Anka is personally ambitious about cultivating talent and believes there is massive potential in developing female IT talent. “It’s a field ripe with potential, and there is no reason why women should not pursue it, especially because they can be very good at the critical aspects like organising, planning, and reporting.”

Invest in your passions

Anka is very serious about her love of sport. Active hobbies like golf, yoga and going on adventures by traveling help her to take time for herself and to put things into perspective, and she encourages her teams to invest time in their personal passions too. Beyond pursuing a healthy mind and body to be her best professional self, Anka’s ultimate ambition is to advocate for the raw talent out there and to encourage her clients to invest time and effort to refine and multiply their skills. “I hope that through my work at Randstad Digital, I can help make dreams come true for my clients, talents, and myself.”

Missed Anka in action at the RightBrains Celebration Event on 7 November? Here's a recap of the event. We hope to see you at our next inspirational session!