Hi there, my name is Emiel Ruis. I am a Service Design and Innovation Advisor based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. I help organisations translate digital innovation into better services, clearer processes and stronger trust between people and institutions.

I design systems, not just interfaces. I work across the full service lifecycle, from research and opportunity framing to concept development, prototyping and implementation. My focus is on how technology changes behaviour, ownership and collaboration, and how new ways of working actually land in daily operations.

I design for human behaviour in complex systems. Services are delivered by people, shaped by processes and experienced by users with real emotions, expectations and constraints. Empathy, systems thinking and organisational alignment are at the core of both my design practice and my leadership.

Service Design & Innovation. My approach to Service Design & Innovation is holistic, integrating cross-disciplinary methods to ensure every touchpoint is crafted with the customer at the heart. I weave together insights from data, psychology, and business to build a seamless omnichannel experience that not only meets but anticipates customer needs. Through this comprehensive lens, I guide companies to not just deliver services, but to create memorable, impactful customer journeys.

The challenges faced by organizations and institutions are becoming increasingly complex, interconnected and systemic. I am a lateral thinker, able to navigate the complexity, inspire, reframe, embrace ambiguity and prototype solutions. This way I can help to transform products, services, business models, organizations, institutions and systems.

The work of advancing innovation inside established organizations requires a systematic approach to engaging different levels of the organizational system in order to anticipate the kinds of challenges, blindspots and barriers that inevitably surface through innovation projects. I can help your organisation by defining and implementing a structural design thinking programmes and service design mindsets.

I draw from a diverse toolkit of capabilities that enables me to support teams and organizations through the transition from where they are now to where they need to be tomorrow.

My skills and tools are drawn from diverse fields of practice: human-centered design, business strategy, research, organizational change and learning, digital culture and design education. I can apply these tools to many diverse challenges and contexts, and as an experienced Design Educator I am skilled in sharing knowledge of these tools and methods within organisations.

I take a holistic approach to a team. I look at a team as a unit of individuals where, when orchestrated well, the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. To do this I establish the parameters for success, create a Big Picture vision that directs the team’s efforts, provide guidance in techniques, and hold team members accountable.

I assume positive intent on everyone’s part, and educate non-designers to help them understand the nature of Design’s contribution, how Design works best, and how to integrate it in the flow of cross-functional work. I am a cross-team player, with some flexibility in my approach, while not being such a pushover, or get-along-to-get-along, that I neglect my designer values.

I serve as designteam evangelist and protector. I am comfortable with the word, “No.” I will always step up to be the 💩 ☂️, protecting my team’s good work and showing I have my team’s collective back.

Designers today are often asked to address new kinds of problems at scales quite different from those of the past.

Design education faces significant challenges. Increasingly, design problems focus less on discrete artifacts for communication and more on a diverse range of designed processes, services, systems, and communities.

Over the past years I have been responsible for the design development of Academic Design Programs at HAN university of applied sciences.

I can help organisations with setting up workshops & design-programs in order to help develop a design mindset accross teams & organisations.