Boukje Taphoorn was most recently the strategy director at KesselsKramer. Coming from a diverse background, she started as a client at Unilever for seven years, where she worked both in the Netherlands as well as the European Brand Centre in London. After London, she moved to Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam where she worked as both Group Account Director and New Business Director.

In her latest transformation as strategic planner, Boukje approaches her work by, “spending enough time thinking about what the problem is (which is often missing in the client brief), because there is always a reason why you’re not selling enough or why the awareness is not as high as you want.” She gets the answer by, “talking to a lot of people; trying the product; talking to lovers and haters; talking to creative at an early stage and getting a feel for what it is you’re supposed to plan.” Boukje is currently planning her next career move and will share an update with us soon!

Follow her on Twitter.

Rosie Frost is an Inventor at ?What If Innovation. She comes up with new products, brands or services to help grow her clients businesses and create new revenue streams.

Starting as a Project Producer in 2006 at ?What If!, she led a 10-person team before becoming Inventor. She has worked on a variety of global projects – from skincare products in Singapore to snacks for teenagers in Turkey to chewing gum trials in Germany to stroke treatment in Denmark. Rosie loves road trips, snowboarding, and her patch of Brixton allotment. And she will probably do anything on a dare.

Follow her on Twitter.

Mark is VP of Brand Strategy at Big Spaceship in Brooklyn. He is a 14-year content-maker who became a brand planner and has worked at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, McCann Sydney, Leo Burnett, and Tribal DDB. He has been online since 1996, built his first website in 1997 and launched Stealth Magazine, the first globally distributed, full color hip hop magazine in the Southern Hemisphere in 1999.

For more perspectives, try:

- How to explain an idea

- How to do account planning - a simple approach

- How to get into strategy

You can follow him on Twitter. Also a big thanks to our contributor, Ben Millstein for shooting this footage over in NYC.

Laurence is the Strategy Director at AKQA Amsterdam. He describes his role as the person who makes sure to ask questions, because too often basic questions simply aren’t asked in the rush to “do something digital”.

Coming from a traditional advertising background, he transitioned to digital strategy five years ago. And he enjoys it for allowing him to help shape integrated campaigns that can have a direct effect on a brand’s business.

Previously he’s worked in a handful of acrynom-named agencies, including WCRS, AMV BBDO, BMP DDB and BBH. He’s also been awarded 2 IPA Effectiveness Awards (for Marmite in 2002 and Transport for London in 2009).

In partnership with Mathew Palmer, Laurence has kindly shared an extremely helpful guide in progressing as a planner. Find it here in three stages.

Timo is the Design Research lead for Next Gen Products in the Experience Design group at Dell.

His responsibilities range from design strategy to corporate strategy. A normal day consists of working closely with designers and strategists to uncover and translate social-cultural changes that will influence the future behaviors of people.

Coming in from an Anthropological background, Timo previously worked for Nokia as a Senior Futures Specialist. Timo is passionate about his career, “I get paid to think and inspire people, and I think that’s the most important thing, when you look at how to get people thinking differently.”

Check out his Linkedin profile for more information.

Heather is the Head of Planning at StrawberryFrog Amsterdam. A strong advocate of cultural changes that benefit brands, Heather currently leads a team developing strategies and creative solutions for Pampers and Emirates Airline. She is fascinated by the convergence of culture, technology, and communication as well as the speed at which all three are moving.

Before joining StrawberryFrog, Heather has worked with a roster of great agencies including Tribal DDB Amsterdam and Crispin Porter + Bogusky in the US. She is also the founder of the extremely useful Planner Survey. You can read more about her on her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Katie is the Global Head of Digital Strategy and Planning at adidas. She is part of an internal creative team that works across all style and sportswear labels. The department focuses on innovation, research and connections planning. With innovation they are charged with looking for new opportunities in technology as well as collaboration opportunities with other brands. The group preforms a lot of preliminary research including ethnography for insight mining. Connections planning helps the team to make sure that all the pieces that are getting created by their counterparts make a consumer journey that is logical and interesting. It’s Katie’s job to manage all aspects of digital including social, mobile and commerce. She partners with the digital leads in each of those groups to help write project briefs and proposals.

Before going client side, Katie worked as an international strategic planner at 180 Amsterdam, Wieden+Kennedy, Wexley School for Girls and more. To find out more about what interests Katie, check out her blog.

Simon is the Senior Strategy Director at Blast Radius in Amsterdam. As head of the strategy department he prides himself in working closely with creative and technical teams to help clients solve their business problems. Simon is loving life developing integrated thinking in a digital agency.

Previously Simon has worked for many years as a freelance planner and has had the opportunity to work at some of the best international agencies in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. To keep up with Simon, follow him on Twitter.