Leon van der Meer

Leon van der Meer is CEO of Probo, the digital large-format production house in print, exclusively for print professionals. Trade-only and fully whitelabel, Probo works behind the scenes for print professionals such as signmakers, advertising agencies, stand and event builders, interior professionals, commercial printers and webshops in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, never competing with its customers. From Dokkum (NL) and Bad Hersfeld (DE), tens of thousands of resellers add their own value, turning 280+ materials into 300,000+ products.

Innovation at Probo serves one goal: facilitating future-proof entrepreneurship. It runs broad: product and material innovations, online infrastructure, operational excellence in production and logistics, all removing complexity from the value chain. On the factory floor: Industry 5.0, AI, robotics and every machine connected to one database, with real-time insight into OEE and capacity. Production becomes programmable: right machine, right location, right price.

Leon joined Probo in 2014 on the financial side, joined the management board in 2018 and took overall leadership in 2022. Data-driven to the core, he grew Probo into the highly automated, technology-driven company it is today. The strategy: proposition-driven, not sales-driven. No chasing orders, no buying reach, an offer so sharp it sells itself. Growth is steered on active customers entrusting more of their business; revenue is not a goal, but a result.

Through plugins, APIs and MCP, local on-demand production and its own whitelabel delivery service, resellers grow without investing in capacity. The order, the label and the margin stay theirs, so they can focus where they truly add value, in a print market full of new opportunities.

To the conversation between the world’s print leaders, Leon brings automation, the smart factory and the data-driven infrastructure that agentic commerce will run on. His conviction: collaboration across the entire ecosystem, from manufacturers and suppliers to trade media, industry associations and print
professionals, makes the print industry future-proof.