Head of Data Science & AI

Linda
Hoeberigs.

Scaling AI from strategy to shipped product. I lead teams that turn LLMs, agentic workflows and machine learning into measurable business outcomes.

Get in touch View experience
Live from my job market tracker

What Dutch AI job ads ask for

Share of Dutch AI and ML job ads naming each skill, 7-day average. Open the dashboard

10+
Years in AI
20+
Products shipped
8
Industry Awards
3
Languages
About

Where data meets
business impact

I'm a data science and AI leader with over a decade of experience driving AI strategy, building high-performing teams, and shipping products that move the needle. At i-Genie.ai (consumer insights without surveys, faster, better, cheaper) I lead Data Science & AI, define the early product roadmap, and took Brand Pulse, ACQ and Innov8 from zero to market. Under my leadership, i-Genie became one of OpenAI's top API consumers globally (10B+ tokens).

Before i-Genie, I spent 8+ years at Unilever where I scaled a data science function from being one of the first scientists to a 25-person Data Science & AI Engineering organisation within Consumer Market Insights, running projects across Consumer Insights, Marketing, NPD, HR and R&D. I set the technical vision, hired and developed talent, and delivered award-winning solutions in NLP, computer vision, and responsible AI.

What sets me apart: I combine deep technical fluency with commercial instinct and stakeholder storytelling. I don't just understand the models; I know how to align them to P&L impact, build the teams to deliver them, and communicate the "so what" to the boardroom.

AI Strategy & Product

Roadmap ownership, 0-to-1 product launches, GenAI at enterprise scale

Org Building

Scaled DS functions from scratch, hired and developed 25+ person teams

Executive Communication

Translating AI into boardroom language, aligning technical vision to business KPIs

Cross-Industry

FMCG, public sector, NGOs, ad tech, market research

Career

Experience

From first data scientist to leading a 25-person AI organisation. A track record of building teams, shipping products, and driving commercial impact.

  1. March 2023 to Present

    Head of Data Science & AI

    i-Genie.ai

    Own the AI strategy, early product roadmap, and technical direction. Took three products (Brand Pulse, ACQ, Innov8) from concept to market. Grew the company into one of OpenAI's top API consumers globally (10B+ tokens).

    • OpenAI Token of Appreciation
  2. June 2021 to January 2023

    Head of Data Science & AI

    Unilever

    Set the technical vision and operating model for Data Science, Innovation and AI across Social & Business Analytics, Data Driven Marketing, and Consumer Engagement. Managed a 25+ person organisation spanning data scientists, ML engineers, and AI specialists.

    • Dataiku Moonshot Pioneer
  3. June 2019 to June 2021

    DS & AI Engineering Manager

    Unilever

    Stood up the AI engineering capability for Consumer Market Insight. Defined the E2E delivery model, embedded AI into core marketing processes, and drove cross-functional adoption across trends, e-commerce, M&A, content, and activation.

    • i-com Influencer Fraud
    • Responsible AI Award
  4. March 2017 to June 2019

    Lead Data Science Manager

    Unilever, London

    First management role. Built and led a data science team, owned the innovation pipeline, and drove industrialisation of new tools and methodologies across Unilever's Global People Data Centre. Youngest mid-level manager in Unilever history at the time of promotion.

    • MRS Computer Vision
    • NLP Solution Award
  5. September 2015 to February 2017

    Data Scientist

    Unilever, London

    Delivered analytics projects across Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain, leveraging data from social media, search, and internal sources. Designed industrialisable analytics tools and evaluated emerging technologies for adoption.

  6. 2016, 2 months

    Data Science Secondment

    Twitter, Boulder, CO

    Secondment with Twitter's data services team as a Unilever data scientist, working on social analytics capabilities.

  7. May to September 2014

    Researcher Macroeconomics

    Centraal Planbureau

    Macroeconomic research on labour hoarding in the Dutch labour market at the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

Recognition

Awards & Honours

LinkedIn Top Voice in AI

2023. Recognised as a leading voice in artificial intelligence on LinkedIn

Dataiku Moonshot Pioneer

Frontrunner Award for pioneering AI innovation at scale

Dataiku Responsible AI

Frontrunner Award for building responsible and ethical AI systems

i-com Award

Industry recognition for Influencer Fraud Detection Solution

MRS Award

Market Research Society award for Computer Vision Solution

MRS Award

Market Research Society award for Language Analyzer, an NLP solution

Unilever Data for Good

Award for applying data science to create positive social impact

OpenAI Token of Appreciation

Honoured for surpassing 10 billion tokens. One of OpenAI's top API users globally

Advisory

Board & Advisory Positions

Thought Leadership

Areas of Expertise

Bridging the gap between technical AI capability and real-world business impact.

Capabilities

Skills & Technologies

Education

Academic Background

Beyond the data

The person behind the algorithms

The same persistence that drives me to scale an AI organisation is what got me a national basketball championship and into powerlifting. I don't do things halfway. Whether it's taking a product from zero to market, training for a new PR, or working through a reading list.

I grew up in the Netherlands, studied and lived across six countries, and I'm happiest when I'm learning something new: a language, a technique, a place. That restlessness is what pulled me from econometrics into data science, from analytics into AI engineering, and from corporate into building products.

When I'm not shipping products, you'll find me travelling, buried in a book, or figuring out how to make the perfect cup of coffee.

  • National ChampionBasketball
  • PowerlifterStrength training
  • 6 CountriesLived & studied
  • BookwormAlways reading
  • CoffeeFuel of choice
  • TravellerAlways exploring
What I read

The Bookshelf

22 books that shaped how I think about data, people, and the world.

22 books
  • 01

    Thinking, Fast and Slow

    Daniel Kahneman, 2011

    Made me question every decision I've ever made.

    data & behaviour
  • 02

    Fooled by Randomness

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2001

    We're all terrible at understanding probability.

    data & behaviour
  • 03

    The Culture Map

    Erin Meyer, 2014

    Changed how I give feedback across cultures.

    leadership
  • 04

    The Anxious Generation

    Jonathan Haidt, 2024

    What screens are doing to the next generation.

    psychology
  • 05

    Everybody Lies

    Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, 2017

    Google search data reveals what surveys never will.

    data & society
  • 06

    The Body Keeps the Score

    Bessel van der Kolk, 2014

    Rewired how I think about stress and resilience.

    psychology
  • 07

    No Rules Rules

    Meyer & Hastings, 2020

    Radical candour and talent density. Bold and polarising.

    leadership
  • 08

    Creativity, Inc.

    Ed Catmull, 2014

    How Pixar built a culture where feedback fuels creativity.

    leadership
  • 09

    The Ministry for the Future

    Kim Stanley Robinson, 2020

    Climate fiction that reads like a policy brief from the future.

    fiction
  • 10

    Burn

    Herman Pontzer, 2021

    Everything you think about metabolism is wrong.

    science
  • 11

    Invisible Women

    Caroline Criado Pérez, 2019

    The data gender gap is everywhere. Can’t unsee it.

    data & society
  • 12

    The Power of Habit

    Charles Duhigg, 2012

    Cue-routine-reward. Simple framework, massive impact.

    psychology
  • 13

    Measure What Matters

    John Doerr, 2017

    OKRs done right. The framework behind my own teams.

    strategy
  • 14

    How Brands Grow

    Byron Sharp, 2010

    Destroys marketing myths with data. A Unilever must-read.

    marketing
  • 15

    Zero to One

    Peter Thiel, 2014

    Think different, build monopolies, ask better questions.

    strategy
  • 16

    Outliers

    Malcolm Gladwell, 2008

    Success is timing, culture, and 10,000 hours.

    society
  • 17

    En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule

    Édouard Louis, 2014

    Raw autofiction about class and identity. Stayed with me for weeks.

    fiction
  • 18

    Life 3.0

    Max Tegmark, 2017

    Big-picture AI thinking that got me into this field.

    AI & tech
  • 19

    When Breath Becomes Air

    Paul Kalanithi, 2016

    What makes life worth living. Devastating and beautiful.

    memoir
  • 20

    Klara and the Sun

    Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021

    AI consciousness through a solar-powered companion. Quiet and profound.

    fiction
  • 21

    Blockchain Chicken Farm

    Xiaowei Wang, 2020

    Tech through a rural Chinese lens. Totally unexpected.

    tech & society
  • 22

    How Asia Works

    Joe Studwell, 2013

    Why some Asian economies soared and others stalled. Data-driven and eye-opening.

    strategy
Open Source

Side Projects

Things I build, ship, and share with the community.

The NL AI Skill Index

Read the index View on GitHub

A Dutch-language index of what employers actually ask for in AI roles, built from six months of daily job-board snapshots. Of 25 technologies tested, only AI Agents rose and only NLP fell once corrected for multiple testing; the rest moved no more than noise. Survival analysis on 2,000+ vacancies, multilingual embeddings for role discovery, and a detection model that corrects a bias making naive job-tenure figures wrong by 7x.

$ python -m nlskill
Tools named per advert: 2.87 → 2.43 (-15%)
Moved beyond noise: 2 of 25 technologies
True median advert life: 13.5 days (naive: 2)
  • Survival Analysis
  • Nederlands
  • Embeddings
  • scikit-learn
  • Python

nl-eval

Leaderboard View on GitHub

How stable is a language model's Dutch? Every item is asked in its original form and in six variants that leave the answer untouched: reversed or shuffled options, an informal or English instruction, a distracting sentence, typos. A model only scores the item when all seven answers are right, and that worst-case accuracy is the headline. 1,363 items, 624 written by hand, from de/het and d/t/dt to Belgian versus Dutch variants. No judge model, and a held-out split that was never committed.

$ nl-eval --robustness --suite core
1,363 items | 7 forms per item | no judge
sonnet-5 98.0 → 90.0 | gpt-5 92.0 → 87.3
Local models under 8B: all onstabiel
  • LLM Evaluation
  • Robustness
  • BLiMP-NL
  • Nederlands
  • Zero Dependencies

AI Job Market Tracker NL

Live Dashboard View on GitHub

Scrapes, classifies, and tracks AI/ML/Data Science job listings from Dutch job sites over time. SQLite database, a dashboard whose headline is recomputed from the data on every run, and automated daily updates via GitHub Actions.

$ python -m src.main --update
Top category: ml-engineer
AI Agents: 14% to 28% of ads since April
Dashboard generated headline recomputed
  • Python
  • SQLite
  • SVG
  • GitHub Actions
  • Web Scraping

Terminal Portfolio CLI

View on GitHub

An interactive terminal portfolio. Run npx linda-hoeberigs in any terminal and navigate my resume, skills, and experience with arrow keys.

$ npx linda-hoeberigs
  ╦  ╦╔╗╔╔╦╗╔═╗
  ║  ║║║║ ║║╠═╣
  ╩═╝╩╝╚╝═╩╝╩ ╩
? What would you like to know?
  ❯ About Me
    Skills · Experience · Awards
  • Node.js
  • CLI
  • Chalk
  • Inquirer

Page Summarizer

View on GitHub

A Chrome extension that summarises any web page with AI. Get key points, sentiment analysis, and reading time estimates in one click.

  • Chrome Extension
  • AI
  • JavaScript

Diaper Price Tracker

View on GitHub

A Python CLI that scrapes 4 major Dutch retailers for Pampers Premium Protection prices and ranks them by price per unit. Uses JSON-LD extraction and Playwright browser automation.

$ python tracker.py
Scraping Albert Heijn... ✓ 1 product
Scraping Bol.com...      ✓ 2 products
1st: Bol.com €0.1166/unit (240 pack)
  • Python
  • Web Scraping
  • Playwright
  • Rich

prompteval

View on GitHub

A lightweight, zero-dependency Python framework for scoring and comparing LLM prompt outputs. 10+ built-in scorers, model-agnostic runners, side-by-side benchmarking with variance analysis, and multi-format reporting.

$ python quickstart.py
ExactMatch: 1.00 LengthRange: 1.00
Pass rate: 75% | Avg score: 0.750
Winner: smart-model (score=1.0)
  • Python
  • LLM Evaluation
  • NLP
  • Zero Dependencies
App Store

Apps

Native iOS apps I've designed, built, and shipped.

BarTrace

App Store Support

A native iPhone and Apple Watch app that turns the watch into a barbell sensor. Record a squat, bench or deadlift set on the wrist and the iPhone returns the numbers for that set: rep count, range of motion, eccentric and concentric tempo, bar velocity, velocity loss, and the sticking point mid-ascent. Includes per-rep bar path and velocity charts, rep comparison, and trends per lift. Everything is processed and stored on device, with no account and no server.

  • SwiftUI
  • watchOS
  • Core Motion
  • HealthKit
  • iOS 17+

De BabyProof App

App Store Website

A native iOS app that helps expecting and new parents baby-proof their home room by room. Includes expert-backed safety checklists per room, a preparation list ("uitzetlijst") for baby essentials, a guide section with product comparisons and safety articles, stage-based recommendations (newborn through toddler), progress tracking, and partner sharing. Bilingual (NL/EN).

  • SwiftUI
  • Supabase
  • Next.js
  • iOS 17+

GymLog Powerlifting Tracker

App Store Website

A native iOS app for powerlifters to log sessions with top sets, back-offs, and RPE tracking. Includes training program builder, e1RM progress charts, warm-up calculator, plate calculator, rest timer, and competition scoring (Wilks, DOTS, IPF GL). All data stays on device.

  • SwiftUI
  • SwiftData
  • Swift Charts
  • iOS 17+
Connect

Let's talk.

Whether it's about AI strategy, speaking engagements, advisory work, or simply exchanging ideas. I'd love to hear from you.

Email me LinkedIn GitHub