Executive · Researcher · Author

The pattern behind how change moves

From the fundamental forces of physics to the lifecycle of a tumour to the dynamics of a team — the same geometry, at every scale.

I am Raimo van der Klein. I run Encounter, a cross-domain research & design practice on dissipative systems — the cycles bodies and teams move through, the way decisions actually fire, the kind of intervention each kind of stall asks for.

The practical part is captured in Riding Change, a book mapping change through four realms and sixteen challenges, publishing Q2 2026.

Before Encounter I served as Chief Operating Officer at Pacmed, co-founded Layar (world's first mobile AR browser, 40M+ users), and scaled Incision from 15 to 80 employees as COO/CPO.

encounter.bio · founded June 2026

Encounter

A cross-domain research & design practice on dissipative systems.

Encounter applies one structural pattern — the same pattern Riding Change describes — to cancer biology, evolutionary dynamics, female health, organisations, and the cycles bodies and teams move through. Cancer immunology is where most of our current evidence lives; the framework is built to hold across substrates.

The practice publishes structural reads of clinical and organisational data, runs the canon model that ties open questions together, and partners with clinicians, researchers, and operators who want to see where a stalled system is held — and which kind of intervention the stall is asking for.

Current focus: cancer immunology (Moffitt collaboration, Chen–Mellman cycle integration), the four-regime cycle as a diagnostic primitive for clinical trial design, and the cross-domain library of cycles that the framework predicts.

Visit encounter.bio →

A turn for each regime, four turns top to bottom. Same helix that runs on encounter.bio.

Q2 2026

Riding Change

How Change Moves — and How to Move With It

Riding Change

How Change Moves —
and How to Move With It

Raimo van der Klein

Riding Change is a book I wrote about how change actually moves — not the management-consulting version, the structural one. Across thirty years of leading teams, coaching founders, and watching companies navigate transformations they did not choose, the same shape kept appearing.

The book names that shape. Four realms a system passes through — Potentiality, Construction, Encounter, Conservation — sixteen challenges arranged inside them, and four threshold events that mark the transitions between them. Once you can read the map, you know where you are, what the situation requires, and what comes next.

Written for anyone in the middle of change: founders, team leads, executives, and people navigating a transformation they did not start. It is the map I wish I had had from the beginning.

Hardcover · 6×9 in · Case laminate, matte · IngramSpark
ISBN 978-90-836865-0-9

Visit Book Site →

Work With Me

Advisory & Coaching

Team & Executive Coaching

Diagnostic work with teams and leaders navigating complex change. Which regime are you in, which challenge is active, what does the situation actually require.

Workshops & Speaking

Half-day and full-day sessions. Keynotes on how change moves — from the I Ching to the four fundamental forces, from startup hypergrowth to healthcare AI.

Interim COO / CPO

Scaling product organisations, building compliant platforms, driving commercial traction. Grew Incision from 15 to 80 with 300% ARR growth. Most recently COO at Pacmed (healthcare AI).

Fractional CPO

Product strategy, roadmapping, and team building without full-time commitment. Sparring partner for leaders facing stalled growth.

About

Experience

2026–

Founder · Encounter — Research & design practice on dissipative systems

2024–26

COO · Pacmed — Healthcare AI, clinical decision support

2020–24

COO & CPO · Incision — 15→80 people, 300% ARR, Series A&B, PMF with US hospitals

2018–20

Head of Product · Talpa Network

2015–20

Founder & CEO · Teamdriver (SaaS) — sold. ABN AMRO, Google, Rockstart, Singularity U.

2009–14

Co-Founder & CEO · Layar — World’s first AR browser. 40M+ users, 50k devs, €13.5M funding. WEF Tech Pioneer 2010. Sold to Blippar.

2007–08

Project Manager Mobile · NOS

2006–07

Innovation Manager · KPN Mobile

2003–06

Key Account Manager · Nokia Mobile Phones

1999–02

Product Marketing · Nokia Networks

1996–99

Marketing Research · Vendex/KBB

B.A. Small Business, Stenden University (1996). Based in Hoofddorp, Netherlands.
Dutch (native), English (fluent), German (proficient).