Ties is Head of Data, Tech & AI at Dawn, where he has built Rolodex – a proprietary AI platform for relationship intelligence – and Brainstem, our portfolio analytics engine. Before Dawn, he was a revenue analytics lead at Google managing several billion dollars of its ads business, and contributed to Google Health’s work using AI to diagnose diabetic retinopathy.

I studied law and statistics in the Netherlands, which is an unusual combination – but one that trained me to be equally rigorous about arguments and evidence. When I moved to London for my master’s at the LSE, I wrote my thesis on whether HD instant replay improved officiating in the NFL. It was a deeply nerdy project. I loved every minute of it.

From there I joined Google, where I led revenue analytics for the Enterprise Ads business across EMEA – managing reporting for several billion dollars of ad spend. But the work that really stayed with me was at Google Health, where I contributed to a project using AI to diagnose diabetic retinopathy from retinal scans, and another mapping air pollution across European cities. It showed me that data, applied well, can change outcomes that actually matter.

That conviction is what brought me to Dawn. Venture capital is a relationship business sitting on a mountain of unstructured data – and almost nobody was treating it seriously. So I built Rolodex, our AI-powered relationship intelligence platform, and Brainstem, our portfolio analytics engine. The ambition is simple: give our investors an unfair advantage by making them better prepared, smarter, and leverage relationships otherwise invisible.

I should also mention that I’ve had five brain surgeries for hydrocephalus. It’s shaped how I think about time, urgency, and what’s worth building. I don’t take any of this for granted.

Outside of work, I’m Dutch, so there’s an obligation to cycle. I also co-founded Cognitas.tech, which works with the LSE and other institutions to teach data science. If you’re interested in how AI is changing venture, I’m always happy to talk.