Twenty years in, still asking why
I am Arlette Vonk. For 20+ years I have worked inside enterprise digital adoption. The technology was usually fine. The humans were usually overlooked. That is the gap I have spent my career closing.
Where it started
In 2007, I had just been hired as a Siebel trainer for salespeople at a Dutch Telco. The instructors told us to teach the buttons, but I sat in the room and thought about the salespeople. They did not need buttons, they needed reasons.
So I asked: "Why would these salespeople ever click these buttons if we don't tell them how it helps them sell?" The room went quiet.
At the end of the day, the trainer asked me to stay behind because someone from Oracle wanted to talk to me. I thought I was in trouble. Instead, the Oracle representative had heard about my question and saw something else: a translator. He offered me a job.
That question shaped the next twenty years of my work.
What I do
I help leaders close the gap between the technology their organizations buy and the people who actually have to use it.
70% of digital transformations miss their goals, and 80% of white-collar workers are rejecting mandated AI. The platforms launch, the people stay quiet, and the translators in the room, often women, hold the project together while staying invisible.
I have spent 20+ years inside enterprise adoption programs: ERP rollouts, AI pilots, CRM migrations, new platform launches. Different tools, same problem.
Why this matters to me
I am not afraid of technology, I have spent two decades inside it. I just refuse to pretend that the humans on the other end do not matter.
The work I have done has been important, and the lessons have been earned, often the hard way. They should not stay locked in my head.
I built The Vonk Playbook to make the human side of digital adoption visible. Not as a soft skill bolted on after the launch, but as the work itself.
Where I am now
I want to do this work bigger. More stages, more audiences, more rooms where transformation lands instead of stalling. More leaders who care about the human side, more organizations who want their rollouts to actually work.
And more conversations with the next generation: women stepping into digital adoption work, and young people across the globe deciding whether to shape technology or fear it. I want to inspire them. I want to be in their corner.
By day I work at Oracle. By everything else, I am building Arlette Vonk.
Let's talk.
Whether you want me on a stage, want to license the Playbook for your team, or just want to say hello, the contact form is the fastest way.
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