The Taste of Ambition: New York Pizza and Babbage's

CMO Joost Geurtsen on the partnership between New York Pizza and Babbage.

How do you set up a pizza chain in the Netherlands? This question was central to the thesis of Philippe Vorst, founder of New York Pizza. Now 30 years later an icon in the Dutch delivery market. Who doesn't know the pizza chain?

Philippe came into contact with Babbage in 2017 through a recommendation for the search for new marketing professionals, with an SEA specialist as his first request. When he was looking for a Marketing Director two years later, he knew where to go. Joost Geurtsen became the new Marketing Director he was looking for and Joost grew to Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). We have been working with him for years now as a recruitment partner and have helped build his marketing and e-commerce team. From Marketing Manager to Online Marketeer, from permanent positions to interim professionals. When Joost is looking for reinforcement for his team, he calls on Babbage for help. Joost: 'I think almost all the marketing team members came via Babbage. You know our company well and that is very nice to work with. You understand the type of person that suits us well, so we often only need half a sentence to make a whole sentence.'

“With few words, energy and time we achieve a very good result together.”

It's the dough!

Within New York Pizza (NYP), Joost, together with his team, is responsible for marketing in the broadest sense of the word. From campaigns to customer journeys. What makes NYP extra special is that the pizza product itself (new recipe, new compositions, etc.) also passes the marketing team. 'That's extra fun, because normally you get a product or proposition thrown in your lap as a marketing, but here it is devised in an integrated way,' says Joost. 'That way everyone is closely involved and everything goes well together: from devising to launching it on the market. We do that from the head office in Amstelveen, on top of our dough factory. Our dough is our secret and we are literally close to it.' 

Why did you choose a recruitment partner?

New York Pizza is a very well-known brand, but the company itself is compactly organized. The organization is growing very quickly and that makes recruiting new colleagues difficult. 'We don't have the time and capacity in-house in terms of recruitment,' Joost explains. 'We are often looking for a specific profile. Of course, that doesn't make the recruitment process any easier, especially with the tight labor market. It is nice to get specialist help with that.'

'We are not the size of a corporate organization, but we are also no longer a startup,' Joost continues. 'We are a very ambitious and fast-growing company. That has to suit you well. It may be a cliché, but the 9 to 5 mentality just doesn't suit us as well. A lot of people like the opportunities that it offers, but for others it doesn't suit them as well. With us, you really get the chance to tackle a lot, to learn and to be allowed to do a lot. It is very dynamic. To find people who fit that profile well, so that there is a real match, the collaboration with Babbage is very nice. You know us well.'

How does Babbage help you?

In 2023, New York Pizza will have existed for 30 years, opened its 300th location and taken the ambitious step to go beyond the national borders. In Germany, dozens of stores have now been opened. Joost talks about the growth towards Germany: 'It is a market that is developing in the field of pizza chains. There is still a lot of space and potential. If you compare it to how many locations we have in the Netherlands, you could perhaps extrapolate that to 1.000 locations in Germany. Of course, that is all theoretical and ambitious, but it does show how much space there is there. And how many pizzas we can bring to a lot of German consumers.'

An expansion to Germany naturally also involves expanding the team. And Babbage plays an important role in this. 'With Babbage, we looked for a colleague who speaks both German and Dutch. The recruitment procedure then becomes even more complicated. That is a difficult profile and there are not hundreds of them.' With the help of Babbage, Joost has found colleagues who work partly or entirely for Germany.

How do you experience the collaboration with Babbage?

'Very pleasant, because we don't need many words to understand each other. I don't really call it a collaboration, but more of a partnership. We really act as partners and because you know us so well, you sometimes know better what suits us than we can describe ourselves. With few words, energy and time, we achieve a very good result together.'

As Director BD & Executive Search, Monique van Vliet has been working with New York Pizza since the start of the partnership. 'You notice that the contact remains pleasant with a constant factor like Monique. But the human side of Babbage is also really characteristic with the other colleagues. You are not interacting with a company, but with people who are passionate about their profession. It is not just a process or a number of standard steps that you go through, but at Babbage you really work with people who know each other well, can make good nuances and then achieve a good result.'

Testimonial Joost Geurtsen, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at New York Pizza
"Almost all of the marketing team members at New York Pizza came to us through Babbage Company. You know our company well and that's a great way to work. You understand the type of person that would be a good fit for us, so we often only need half a sentence to make a whole sentence."