RAPHAEL THYS
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28 years of navigating organisations through technology transitions.

AI is the sixth wave. The pattern is the same.

Every technology shift creates the same organisational moment: teams know they need to move but can't find the direction. I've spent my career in that gap — bringing clarity where complexity creates paralysis, aligning stakeholders around a shared path forward, and energising teams to cross.

The work below spans five technology waves — from early web to omnichannel, from IoT to AI. The tools change. The human challenge doesn't. That's what I solve.

Current focus

AI & Team Activation

Engagements where teams went from AI curiosity to AI capability — and the institutional work shaping how AI adoption happens at scale.

Novable

8 weeks from AI paralysis to AI capability

The challenge

Novable's team knew AI was central to their future but couldn't translate that awareness into daily practice. Individual curiosity existed; collective capability didn't. The gap between 'we should use AI' and 'we actually use AI' was widening.

The approach

An 8-week AI Activation Sprint combining group sessions with individual coaching. Rather than teaching tools, the program started with each team member's actual workflow — identifying where AI could remove friction, amplify quality, or unlock capacity they didn't know they had. Group sessions built shared language and collective momentum. Individual coaching addressed personal blockers and use cases specific to each role.

The Shift

By week 8, the team had moved from sporadic experimentation to embedded AI practices. Each member had identified, tested, and adopted AI workflows specific to their role. More importantly, they had developed the judgment to evaluate new AI capabilities independently — a skill that outlasts any specific tool.

"Raphael stepped in like a true Zen master and made everything clear. It felt like working with a therapist who brings out the best in you. His approach empowered me to choose when and how to make AI work for me."
Dounia D. Marketing Manager, Novable
"The impact was immediate. He guided us from a high-level brainstorming on AI capabilities down to very specific, individual sessions where we tackled real challenges."
Irene V. Client Success Manager, Novable

This engagement became the AI Activation Sprint — now available as a structured 8-week program for teams ready to move from AI curiosity to AI capability.

idloom

From siloed AI experiments to shared adoption

The challenge

idloom already had the basics in place, but AI projects were siloed and adoption was uneven across the team. The question was no longer whether AI mattered; it was how to align customer support, product development, and internal operations around the right initiatives.

The approach

A hands-on AI harmonization engagement: starting with a workshop to align the team on AI's real potential, then identifying and prioritizing key initiatives across departments. From there, structured working groups turned isolated experiments into shared practice.

The Impact

The engagement created deeper integration, broader adoption, and a stronger culture of sharing best practices. What began as uneven experimentation became a more coherent operating rhythm for AI inside the team.

"The impact has been tangible: deeper integration, broader adoption, and a genuine culture of sharing best practices."
Maxence Cupper CTO & Founder, idloom

European Parliament

Institutional AI adoption at scale

The challenge

The European Parliament faces a dual pressure: growing demand from employees who want to use commercially available LLMs but can't for privacy and confidentiality reasons, and an organizational imperative to adopt AI strategically rather than reactively.

The approach

Working within the newly created AI Service, a three-pronged institutional activation: deploying the GenAI Hub (on-premise and dedicated cloud LLMs), building a competence center to guide users, and animating a community that trains, engages, and supports employees in daily AI usage and mastery.

The Pattern

The same challenge at institutional scale: thousands of people know AI matters, but the path from curiosity to capability requires structure, guidance, and trust. The tools are different. The human dynamics are identical.

Engie

From curiosity to capability: agentic AI in the energy sector

Keynote designed for energy sector leadership, exploring how agentic AI transforms operational models. Custom-built around the audience's strategic context and blind spots — drawing on systems thinking, scenario planning, and first-principles reasoning.

28-year track record

Transformation Track Record

The work that proves the methodology. Different waves — web, mobile, omnichannel, IoT — same human problem. Complexity that paralysed teams until someone brought clarity.

IRISnet

From zero to flagship product in 3 years

The challenge

IRISnet's digital ecosystem was fragmented: multiple disconnected back-ends, semi-manual processes running on Excel spreadsheets stored on shared drives, and no unified experience for customers or employees. Growth was stalling under operational friction.

The approach

Envisioned and led a unified digital ecosystem from scratch. As Product Owner and UX Architect, aligned stakeholders around a shared product vision, designed the complete information architecture and service design, built a design system for cross-product consistency, and supervised a lean development team through iterative delivery.

The Result

  • 50%+ customers onboarded in year one
  • NPS up by +40%
  • Platform adopted as the organisation's primary customer touchpoint
  • Architecture (React, GraphQL, API-first) became the foundation for all future digital products
"The launch of the MyIRISnet customer selfcare tool was of a quality and efficiency rarely encountered for such complex projects. This success demonstrated that working with a small team of experts actually provided a high guarantee of results and budget control."
Yves Haas Head of Product Management, IRISnet

European Parliament

Clarity at continental scale

The challenge

The European Parliament website serves millions of citizens across 27 languages. Navigation had a less than 20% success rate — visitors couldn't find what they were looking for. At peak traffic before elections, over 1 million visitors per day depended on an architecture that was failing them.

The approach

Applied Gerry McGovern's Top Tasks Analysis methodology — working directly with its creator. Ran 50+ stakeholder workshops, conducted over 6,000 user tests, and designed a phased implementation plan that replaced the navigation system without disrupting a live high-traffic platform.

The Result

  • Navigation success rate: from below 20% to above 82%
  • Architecture serving 27 language versions with consistent user experience
  • Design system ensuring scalability and maintainability across tens of thousands of pages
"Raphael is a very passionate, skilled and hard-working UX strategist and architect, with a keen attention to detail for design systems, UX strategy and design operations. I absolutely loved to see Raphael bridging the gap between design concepts and technical implementation."
Vitaly Friedman Founder of SmashingMagazine.com

Carrefour

Initiating change in a large organisation

The challenge

Carrefour Belgium needed to transition from fragmented channel strategies to a unified omnichannel experience. The organisation had the talent but lacked the shared vision and cross-functional alignment to make it happen.

The approach

Led omnichannel strategy and evangelism — not just designing the experience, but building internal conviction for why it mattered. Worked across business units to create shared understanding of customer intent and removed friction between siloed teams.

"Raphaël is probably the most digital person I have met in the course of my career. He has particularly impressive general and digital knowledge. In business, we often have a tendency to create complexity and his greatest strength is that he simplifies things so that the customer receives the best possible experience."
Véronique Marichal Head of e-Commerce & Digital Marketing, Carrefour Belgique

Pattern signals

Same pattern, different wave

Shorter engagements that demonstrate the same core discipline — bringing clarity to complexity — across government, energy, and finance.

SPW

Bringing structure to a complex government platform

Joined a government web application project (Active Management Cases) in its fourth year of development — three years without dedicated UX. Led stakeholder alignment, created a comprehensive design system, and oversaw 400+ screens covering the entire application scope.

Luminus

Digital vision & strategy for the energy transition

Created a digital vision, aligned top-down strategies, and delivered action plans and roadmaps for marketing and applications. In collaboration with MediaBrands agency.

Elia

Open innovation across 120 energy companies

Facilitated the Internet of Energy open innovation ecosystem — designing and running workshops that brought together 120 companies (from large accounts to research centres and startups) to map the future of decentralised energy grids.

SWIFT

Remote team engagement during global disruption

Designed and delivered an experiential marketing concept that kept distributed teams engaged and connected during lockdown — proving that human connection and creative collaboration can survive digital-only environments.

The complexity is different. The human challenge isn't.

Every engagement above shares a common thread: an organisation facing a transition it couldn't navigate alone. New technology. New processes. New ways of working. The complexity was different each time. The human challenge was always the same.

That's what 28 years of pattern recognition gives you. Not just knowledge of what works — but the instinct for what's actually blocking you. And the energy to help your team break through it.