Experienced entrepreneur Ruben Meiland (42) – former founder of Ticketscript and VP of Product at Eventbrite – joins Leadingcourses.com as CTPO (Chief Technology & Product Officer). Leadingcourses.com is the leading golf review and booking website in Europe.
In 2017, Meiland sold his Dutch based company, Ticketscript, to the American company Eventbrite. Due to his international ambition, Meiland moved to Silicon Valley to act as VP of Product for Eventbrite. There he was responsible for a large part of the product organization. After several years at Eventbrite, he decided to return home to the Netherlands.
Shortly after his return home, Meiland began to assist small businesses in scaling-up. This is when he first connected with Leadingcourses.com. After several cups of coffee and many meetings with Leadingcourses’ stakeholders, Meiland accepted the invitation to join their Management Team.
Jeroen Korving, CEO of Leadingcourses.com: “We are really excited about Ruben joining the team. He brings a wealth of experience that we can put to good use. Having such a heavyweight joining us in this difficult time shows that we are on the right track.”
Meiland picked up golf in San Francisco and was instantly hooked. The perfect combination of golf and scaling-up is what initiated the spark between him and Leadingcourses.com. The timing was perfect because Leadingcourses.com just had a vacancy for a new CPTO, a crucial position now that Leadingcourses.com is working on a complete rebuild of their platform – to be launched in Q2 2020.
Meiland will take over the supervision of the rebuild and will be responsible for the development of future products and services. He will also lead our team of developers and manage all partnerships with external tech companies.
“I see many parallels with the event industry a few years ago; there are lots of opportunities to further develop the golf industry with a strong product focus, digital innovations and the use of data. The platform already is very impressive and I look forward to take it to the next level,” says Meiland.
In January and February 2020, Leadingcourses.com proved growth of over 600% (booked tee times). Despite the fact that Leadingcourses.com has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and golf course closures across Europe, ambitions remain high and investment in the platform and company growth continues.
