René Van Olst | COO
Blacklane

René van Olst is the Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Blacklane overseeing the Customer Care department, which supports Blacklane’s guests, and the Partner Management team, which manages chauffeur relations. This includes working hand-in-hand with Blacklane’s London hub,  one of the largest markets for the business. He joined Blacklane in 2019 as Head of Global Partner Management, before being promoted to a Director in 2020 and expanding his role to COO in 2022.  Additionally, van Olst leads Blacklane’s transition to an electric vehicle (EV) fleet, driving sustainability initiatives within the company.  Before joining Blacklane, van Olst gained extensive experience working with large teams and two-sided business models. At Zalando, Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, he co-developed a personal shopping experience that expanded to 700 stylists serving hundreds of thousands of customers. He has also worked as a consultant for e-commerce projects and played a key role in the reorganization of the customer care department of a major insurance company. Van Olst holds a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Business Administration and Management from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam). He has worked and studied in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and is fluent in English, German, Dutch and Italian.