»Strong client relationships are built on understanding«
When you ask Nina Marlene Magnussen Zuidema, Partner and Head of Public Sales at Netcompany, about her approach to IT sales, she does not start by talking about targets, pipelines or contracts. For her, meaningful client interaction begins and ends with understanding the people and organisations she works with.
For Nina, working with clients has never been about pushing a product or closing a deal. It is about listening closely enough to understand what clients are trying to achieve, sometimes before they have fully formulated it themselves, and then helping them find the right way forward.
A personal drive to digitalise and automate
Nina is not a traditional IT professional. Her path into IT was shaped less by technology itself and more by a desire to make complex processes work better.
Nina’s interest in IT began long before she joined Netcompany. As a young adult, she was more interested in politics and understanding societal structures, and therefore chose to pursue a master’s degree in political science.
However, while working in the United States in the early 2000s, she saw how data and information were printed and then manually typed into systems again.
To her, the inefficiency was impossible to ignore.
»I remember thinking that this was completely unnecessary. Surely, we must be able to do this in a smarter way.«
That desire to simplify, automate and improve processes has followed her throughout her career and continues to shape her work today. »It is always about understanding the bigger picture and creating value where there is a need,« she says.
Turning sales into strategic client advisory
Understanding the needs of the public sector is something Nina knows well. Before joining Netcompany, she spent several years in and around the Danish public sector, working on large-scale implementation programmes, complex legislation and digital solutions that had to work in practice.
These experiences played an important role in shaping her view of what successful digital transformation requires: strong technical expertise, deep business understanding and a clear sense of purpose. They also became the foundation for the change she would later help drive within Netcompany’s Public Sales organisation.
Since joining Netcompany six years ago, Nina has become a key figure in building and developing the sales function within Public and, more recently, leading it.
That work has been about moving sales closer to advisory: creating a stronger understanding of public sector needs, strengthening dialogue across teams and ensuring that Netcompany brings relevant ideas, insight and value to the table.
Her approach is rooted in advisory, developed in close collaboration with Netcompany colleagues, and always aligned with the client’s priorities.
In her current role, Nina is responsible for several public sector clients.
She also develops concepts and solutions in close dialogue with clients and acts as a mentor for many colleagues without a traditional IT background.
Where delivery managers focus on the technical side of projects, Nina focuses on the client relationship, including the client’s short- and long-term needs, goals and vision. She helps translate those needs, build trust and connect Netcompany’s capabilities to the priorities that matter most for the client.
Creating value through collaboration
Nina’s focus on value creation is also reflected in the innovation hackathons she organises every year. Here, she brings together teams from across Netcompany to explore how their knowledge of clients’ systems can be used to innovate and create even more value.
The teams work on innovation, ideation and concept development, identifying concrete opportunities for improvement and developing ideas for how Netcompany can help organisations achieve their goals or solve specific problems. The best ideas are taken further, first to management and sometimes onwards to directors at the client organisation.
For Nina, the hackathons strengthen both internal collaboration and external impact. They encourage teams to look beyond delivery and think strategically about how their efforts and knowledge can support the clients’ wider mission.
This is also part of the transformation she has helped drive in Public Sales: moving closer to clients, asking better questions and using Netcompany’s collective knowledge more proactively.
»For me, sales is not a transaction. It is a long-term commitment to understanding the client, creating trust and helping build solutions that matter,« she says.
»For me, sales is not a transaction. It is a long-term commitment to understanding the client, creating trust and helping build solutions that matter.«
Looking ahead
That same focus on understanding needs, creating value and building solutions that matter is also shaping where Nina wants to take the work next.
She is increasingly interested in security and sovereignty, which she sees as crucial areas for both Denmark and Europe.
»I am increasingly interested in how we can strengthen security and sovereignty in the solutions we build,« she says. »And the next big step is to take what we have built within Public in Denmark into Europe. There is a lot to do.«
