

‘Sport connects people, from all around the world, from all layers of society. Just like the oceans are the connecting factor between all continents. For us, our Olympic rings symbolize our drive to reach our goals together, as a team.’ - Virginia Yanquilevich, CEO
Five rings and a bottle forged in the fires of VDL. Sounds like a Tolkien story, but to be honest, it all started with the question any three-year-old asks about 124 times a day: Why? In 2017, we already had the drive of Tom Dumoulin, but how were we going to reach our goal? To help us set up a Cersei-worthy strategy, Dopper went looking for a new CEO. Who would survive the ultimate test: an escape room challenge together with our founder Merijn? Virginia Yanquilevich, that’s who! She didn’t escape, but she and Merijn immediately became Dopper’s very own G&T: an inseparable, intoxicating duo who inspire us and give us (Dutch) courage. Virginia’s first goal as CEO? Create focus and help us answer the big questions, like ‘Why do we do the things we do?’ and ‘Which Argentinian wine should be in our wine fridge?’. She has proven herself to be extremely valuable, on all accounts.
Saving the planet is world-class sport!
It didn’t take long before the strategy was linked to the Olympic rings. Saving the planet is nothing short of world-class sport after all! We already worked along five year plans, which happened to coincide with the Olympics. Everything came together in 2016 in Rio, we’re now working towards our goals for Tokyo 2020 and we are already discussing 2025, Paris. Oui are on our way!
‘Every ring is a specific goal that contributes to our mission. And all rings and goals are interlinked, which means that they also connect all departments and persons. Every Dopper employee and every department is working hard to get that gold medal: a better world for everyone!’ - Merijn Everaarts, Dopper’s Founder.
Together with all Dopper employees, we took the Olympic rings, our coloring pencils and wrote down the five things we wanted to achieve before 2020. We all added our signatures to these goals, they became our bible. But as holy and cult-like as that sounds, they do leave room for improvisation. Does putting a water tap point on Mars help us reach our goals? Then what are we waiting for!
Fun and games!
We built the foundation of all our goals in less than a year’s time. We can’t see why the new Game of Thrones Season should take so long. But then again, we are not dealing with dragons. And creating the rings was relatively easy. Write them down, everybody pledge to contribute to them, light an Olympic flame on the beach. Done. But of course, this was only the beginning. We have been working hard to lay a solid foundation for the next few years, but Dopper wouldn’t be Dopper if 2017 wasn’t fun! We don’t know if we will see the day the single-use water bottles are banned from the supermarkets, so we’d better celebrate every step along the way. And we did! Especially when we won the Election of Entrepreneur of the Year of Noord-Holland, when we launched our new Perfect Paradise Collection and when Sinterklaas celebrated his birthday and we all got the days between Christmas and New Year’s off as a present from Merijn and Virginia! 2017 was the year that gave Dopper a boost in the right direction. Let the games begin!