Marieke Dessauvagie

AREA OF EXPERTISE: Dirk has over 25 years experience in hotel operational consulting with a focus on database management & customer loyalty programs and hotel reservation systems in the global market. Dirk is a specialist in strategic management & marketing projects with clarity in vision and strategy, leading to tangible results. Focus on cross border assignments, leveraging extensive entrepreneurial expertise in Europe, the Middle East, India, Brazil and Russia. Dirk has expertise in fields such as multi country assigments, strategic marketing, International Business Development, International Private Public Initiatives, hospitality consultancy and corporate finance assignments. Spending 3 years in hotel development and real estate financing related areas he combined his expertise as a hotel operations specialist in his new role since late 2009 as Director Hotels for Colliers International in the Netherlands. Dirk incorporated the current Hotels division of Colliers International in the Netherlands and is a Partner at Colliers in the Netherlands. He also heads the Colliers EMEA hotels team within the Colliers EMEA region. Since September 1, 2017 he is the Chief Executive officer for Colliers in the Netherlands leding a team of 330 professionals and 6 offices.

Joost was the founder in 2002 of MD Hotel Investments, a succesfull niche hotel corporate finance advisory based in Amsterdam and the co-founder of European Hotel Capital, a private equity international hotel fund. Since June 2013 Joost joined Colliers in Amsterdam as Director Hotels and specialised in hotel developement advisory, operator search and hotel financing. 

I  started my career in the tourism branche working for a touroperator at the office and as a flight attendent for a dutch airline. After spending 1.5 year in Jakarta, Indonesia I worked for 7 years as a recruiter for a Recruitment company.

I do work for Colliers International Amsterdam since 2004. I first joined the Valuation Department for 6 years and after that I started working for the Hotel Department as a  Team Assistant for the following 8 years.

In June 2018 I started my  new job as Personal Assistant to the CEO .

As part of the last course at the Hotelschool The Hague, I executed and finished an internship at Colliers International in the Hotel department in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During this six month internship period, I supported the team during projects ranging from valuations, feasibilities, hotel sale transactions, operator search and the selection and contract negotiations. Besides my supportive role within the team, I was asked to investigate the impact Airbnb in the European hotel market. 

After my internship, I finalized and defended my thesis on the impact of regulations on Airbnb in the top European hotel markets. After successfully defending my thesis and obtaining a specific grade, I was offered the job as Junior Hotel Consultant. Of course, I could not reject this offer. Two months after my graduation on the 1st of June 2018, I started my professional career at Colliers International.