About Iris Zonneveldt, CEO and Founder of Treams

Hello, my name is Iris Zonneveldt and I am CEO and founder of Treams. Nice that you found Treams and me! I'd love to tell you a little bit more about myself.

The run-up to my role as CEO at a software company

I will begin with a look at my study history. I studied at University College Utrecht, where I earned a bachelor's degree with both alpha, beta and gamma courses. My major focused on social geography. At TU Eindhoven I then started my bachelor's degree in 'Industrial Design'.
Entrepreneurship was in my blood from a fairly young age. I founded Treams with heart and soul and, of course together with my own dream team, brought it to maturity. I am grateful and proud to have won multiple awards over the years, including "Entrepreneur of the Year," "HR Talent of the Year," and three times "Woman to Watch." To these we may add the "FD Gazelles" award in 2024, for the rapid growth we are experiencing year on year!

How did I become an HR Tech CEO?

My love for both people and technology led me to software development. I am enormously fascinated by people and how they work together. What makes a team a dream team? How is it possible that in some teams everything is right, goes naturally? That they trust each other blindly and deliver top performance together?
At the same time, I wanted to create a super cool, intuitive and beautiful software product. I still enjoy doing that: bridging the gap between a concrete problem and a software solution.

It was my ambition and dream to develop software that allows everyone to perform at their best. I wish everyone could experience their work that way.

The prompt: Appraisal interviews? They need to be different!

I founded Treams in 2012. The motivation came from my wonderment about the traditional appraisal interview: I often found it demotivating, hierarchical and too much focused on looking back. All the while, I was working informally with my colleagues and looking forward to good conversations. The conversations often felt like a disappointment because of that classic, administrative format.
Moreover, I was surprised at the systems that were used. Those were rigid, for example one digital form. That made the software at the time compelling and very inflexible. It was only accessible to HR and not designed for employees. All the while you were already using wonderful applications privately. Software at work lagged miles behind. Why couldn't software just empower employees to take charge themselves? That was the starting point for Treams: designing software for employees instead of for managers or HR.

Our core values and mission at Treams

Our mission is simple: we make software for dream teams. In a dream team, performance comes naturally; everyone is motivated and brings out the best in themselves. That's what we wish for every working team. With Treams' simple software, employees get exactly what really motivates them: clear goals, valuable feedback and perspective for development. Our data helps organizations understand what's going on in their teams and how to get the best out of their people. Treams' core values are "Keep growing," "Make it colorful," and "Deliver success."

Our clear vision is our drive

We are not a standard software company, but fully committed to the culture change that our software supports: from judging to coaching, from control to trust, from closedness to openness. To truly put employees at the center, organizations must change their existing HR processes and structures. This requires modern, people-oriented tools designed for employees. We provide the software that anchors this change, as well as the training needed to adopt the new behavior and the expertise to make the move at the organizational level. We offer a sustainable solution that pays for itself in no time. Our long customer relationships and extremely high customer satisfaction provide the proof.

What makes our products and services unique?

We offer a software platform consisting of three pillars: performance, development and engagement. In addition, we guide organizations intensively during the implementation of our software, ensuring the highest usage rates in our market. We also offer additional expertise, training and workshops to support behavioral changes. This is how we help organizations to truly put employees at the center and build dream teams.

My role as CEO

As CEO, I strongly believe in giving space and trust, which goes hand in hand with responsibility. I expect my team to communicate proactively, take ownership and give each other feedback. To drive growth and innovation, we employ a growth cycle with quarterly goals, one-on-one coaching and crystal clear focus and business goals with no doubt about priorities. We have sky-high ambitions.

Our greatest achievements and milestones to date

We have achieved impressive growth so far. We have won several amazing awards and we are super proud of our wonderful customers such as ilionix, Schiphol, Hallmark and many others! We have an NPS score of a whopping +83, which we are extremely proud of.
I personally get very excited by the feedback from our customers. We excel in high adoption rates, high customer satisfaction and long collaborations. Customers love our software and praise the knowledge and inspiration we share in our customer community. Our customers themselves are our greatest ambassadors. They recommend Treams or they introduce Treams to the next organization when our contact changes jobs. You can't have it much nicer than that, in my opinion.

Personal interests and inspiration

My area of interest is very broad. I read the weekend paper every week, my favorite time of the week. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I like to read books. From philosophical books to books about "real lives. For example, "What Would Aristotle Do? But also the columns of Eva Hoeke, or books by Liane Moriarty, columns by Ben Tichelaar in NRC, Linkedin posts by Danielle Braun and courses by 'The School of Life'. I have a fascination with how people develop and learn about themselves. I also enjoy listening to podcasts about the U.S. election. A strong podcast within our field is People Masterminds: highly recommended! I also like journalism podcasts, for example The Drop Out, Under the spell of Ria or The Secret of Mallorca.

Who or what inspires you as a leader and entrepreneur?

My biggest sources of inspiration are my parents. My father was technical, my mother an expert in change management. They were no nonsense and taught me to work hard with respect for everyone. They gave me a foundation of equality and taught me not to discriminate between people. Everyone should be able to participate, everyone counts. Those values are directly reflected in our software.
As an entrepreneur in the SaaS world, bootstrap entrepreneurs inspire me, like the founders of Moneybird. I share many values with them. I like the idea of autonomous entrepreneurship, standing on my own two feet. But I also find entrepreneurs of family businesses inspiring: they think in longer terms with a lot of eye for their people. Eric van Schagen of Simac, for example.

Are you triggered by my story?

Are you curious about how we build dream teams? Then watch our product video, contact us to get acquainted, or come to one of our workshops or trainings. We'd love to show you how Treams can help your organization grow!