Our story
Hyvä comes from the Finnish language and literally means "good". But also "desirable" and "advisable". Here's how it's pronounced.
We didn't name our company Hyvä because we think we are that good, it has an intrinsic meaning that's embedded into our work. We set out to build the best Magento products we possibly can. We want to build products that are really really good.
Our products bring value to merchants, developers, agencies and ultimately: end users of your Magento based website.
Our core values are simplicity (by reduced complexity), quality, performance and fun. Yes, We should all have fun doing our work.
Meet the Management
Willem Wigman
Founder and creator of Hyvä Themes. Deeply passionate about Magento and the World Wide Web. Fun fact: took on his wife's last name making his initials W.W.W.
Father and husband, (deep sea) diver, musician, builder by nature. Started Hyvä to build a Magento store for his wife, which could happen any time now.
Vinai Kopp
Technical Director and Partner. Focuses on developer experience, tooling and education.
Trained Magento developers for well over a decade as a trainer of the official Magento U program. Worked at Magento during the Ebay era. Member of the official Magento certification board and instructor at Mage2.TV, the online Magento training platform.
Above all, Vinai is a family man and loves being outdoor in nature, running or walking his dog.
Sanne Bolkenstein
Commercial Director. Leads our Sales and Partnerships and focuses on new opportunities and markets for Hyvä to grow.
Sanne is a familiar face in the Magento ecosystem and has been around for almost a decade. She brings a wealth of experience in leading Sales and Partnership teams.
“I’m very happy to be working with a true gamechanging product for the Magento Community! Hyvä is all about community, trust, and joy in work. I can very much relate to these values!”
Sanne is also chair of the AFRIpads Foundation, enjoys the Amsterdam perks, develops an ever-deepening affection for wine and cooking, and advocates for more diversity in the workplace.
Thien-Lan Weber
VP Strategy & Marketing. Focuses on Business Growth and Marketing.
Thien Lan is all about fun and facts! She started her career last century and has worked for 12 companies on 3 continents so far, including Banking in New York, Management Consultant in Paris and full spectrum Marketer in Sydney.
In 2016 she joined the Magento ecosystem and quickly became the eCommerce checkout expert, an energetic speaker and MC, and the Vice President of Mage-OS.
In her spare time, she is a real foodie, a drummer in a rock band, a fun(ny) wife and a tiger mum. She is also an investor and advisor in the field of Burnout prevention and recovery.
John Hughes
VP of Product. Leads our development team and turns requirements into products.
John is equally known for his taste in animated GIFs as for the deeply technical content of his many conference talks.
He started his Magento journey over a decade ago and picked up pretty much all certifications along the way. As Technical Director of Fisheye/YouweUK he focussed heavily on education and building excellence into Adobe Commerce integrations.
John is a Mage-OS board director and he enjoys a good hike with his family, collecting LEGO and playing board games.
Meet the Commercial Team
Danny Uranka
VP Brand Development. Makes Hyvä look good.
Has a profound passion for anything and everything eCommerce related.
Danny has the ability to make pretty much anything look good, both online and on paper. And shirts, and mugs, and caps, and whatnot! He's responsible for all Hyvä branding, Hyvä UI Product Owner, and anything else we throw at him.
Merel Wesseling
Product Owner Business. Leads customer facing system development.
Merel focusses on the customer experience of our sales and partner management systems.
Merels previous roles include Marketing Manager and Product Owner of the Control Panel at Hypernode, meaning she knows our ecosystem and customer needs very well.
You can lure her out of her house to enjoy a good class of wine or cocktail and some social time.
Rebecca Brocton
Community Manager. Our community reporter, event organizer and party starter.
Rebecca made her fame in the Magento community as content creator, event MC and Magento Association board member.
She worked both agency side as merchant side before joining Hyvä. Enjoy the Hyvä and Magento content overload via our weekly Hot Cakes on LinkedIn!
Tom Ketels
Partner Marketing Manager. Makes Hyvä "gezellig".
Tom loves connecting (with) people more than anything. 150BPM music is a close second.
At Hyvä, Tom manages partner relations and marketing, putting his background in International Marketing and Management to good use.
In his free time Tom likes a whole range of sports and social time accompanied by various forms of CH₃CH₂OH. He claims to be good at League of Legends, but we haven't seen proof of that.
Alma Gulpers-Jamin
Executive Assistant. Takes care of Business.
With a background in gastronomy and commercial management, Alma is a true enabler. She won't be happy until everyone else is.
Alma meticulously plans event arrangements, takes care of accounting, paperwork and planning.
She's Dutch, but a Parisienne by heart. Once she starts talking about French wine, dine and Saucissons she won't stop!
Meet the Tech Team
Willem Poortman
Senior Developer & Solutions Architect. Hyvä Checkout and Magewire master.
After a short but passionate carpenter career, Willem made the switch in 2009 to another passion, web development. Before joining Hyvä, Willem worked agency side as Magento developer, architect and technical director. Willem is the creator of Magewire and focused mainly on our checkout.
In his spare time, Willem loves to cook, make long walks and work on the house.
Anton Siniorg
Checkout Integrations Engineer. Focuses on Hyvä Checkout Service Integrations.
Breathing everything Magento since 2010, also known as the man behind the original OneStepCheckout extension.
Anton has a wealth of experience in web development, solution architecture, system analysis, support and customer communication - with a focus solely on e-commerce and specially Magento development since 2011.
Sean van Zuidam
Frontend Wizard. Focusses on Hyvä UI and Hyvä Theme development.
To say Sean is a seasoned frontend developer would be an understatement! He's the creator of his own frontend framework, Fylgja, and an avid Open Source contributor.
Sean has worked with Magento for almost a decade. Before joining Hyvä he worked at Mooore Digital, a Dutch Magento agency.
Sean loves gaming and metal music, and has been co-organizing many Magento developer events together with Yireo.
Ryan Hissey
Magento Developer. Builds out our Hyvä Checkout and Enterprise offering.
Hyvä's PHP wizzkid, holds a Computer Science degree and is not afraid to take on any programming challenge.
Ryan started his Magento career at one of Englands finest Hyvä agencies. He later worked at a payment provider and UK merchant before joining Hyvä.
As a former bartender he knows how to draft a good pint and you can regularly find him socializing at the @PHPStoke Meetup.
Kiel Pykett
Magento Developer. Makes Magento go brrrrrrr.
Kiel [K-Y-L] worked on the agency side in the years before joining Hyvä, as Lead Full Stack Magento Developer.
He is an Open Source enthusiast and long time contributor to Hyvä, Magento, Mage-OS and Magewire.
His spirit animal is a Psyduck and he enjoys watching pro gaming tournaments.
Simone Zuurveld
Magento Developer. Focuses on internal projects such as this website.
Simone is a veteran in the Magento world, having managed many successful Magento projects from start to finish as a full-stack developer and business owner.
She is a mother, loves cats and dogs. She loves spending her free time being active outdoors or in the gym, to balance out working behind the keyboard. And she owns an ice cream shop in Hilversum!
Amanda Bradley
Magento (Frontend) Developer. With a passion for accessibility.
Amanda found her passion for Hyvä while working at an UK agency, until she decided to join Hyvä's mission to make all Magento frontends better AND more accessible!
She loves resolving complex issues and dealing with problems, in which her weapon of choice is either code or a wrench!
When Amanda is not programming, she loves all stuff (she self-proclaimed) "nerdy": tabletop games, D&D, Blades in the Dark, comic books and... restoring an Iconic MK1 model Ford Fiesta.
Andreas von Studnitz
Senior Operations and Magento Architect. Turning our own Magento store into a customer experience rocket ship.
Andreas and Hyvä go way back, like waaay back to its inception. As the co-owner of integer_net, Andreas witnessed our founder Willem build the very first version of our Theme during his employment. After 12 years of building ecommerce solutions for integer_net clients, Andreas decided he's ready for his next chapter and join our mission, bringing a smile to the faces of merchants and developers world wide.
He will be working on our internal tooling, upcoming customer dashboard, Hyvä products and... some exciting things we can't reveal just yet.
Andreas is a trainer, public speaker, consultant, architect, developer and avid gamer. And a two time Magento Master too (2019-2020 "Mentor").
Jeroen Boersma
Security Officer. Our Digital Locksmith, aimed at keeping our community safe.
Previously co-owner of our partner Elgentos, Jeroen knows the drill. He's a certified Magento badass, disguised as a gentle family man.
Jeroen has so many hobbies, he could feature a work/life balance advert. Family? Check! Musician? Check! Sports? Check! Pets? Check! Idyllic backyard that includes a forest and campsite?? CHECK!
Alessandro Ronchi
Engineering Manager and Developer Evangelist. Makes developers smile.
Alessandro is a pillar of the Magento Community. He's been a top contributor and official maintainer of the Magento Open Source codebase.
Before joining Hyvä, he built the well known Italian agency Bitbull and was rewarded with 3 Magento Master awards.
As a true Italian, he takes his coffee very seriously. He's also a father, avid runner and learner for life. And he might some day beat Vinai in chess.
Andrea D'Urso
Magento Developer. Focusses on Hyvä Commerce development.
A seasoned Magento and Adobe Commerce Architect from Italy, currently living in the UK. Loves putting out fires and crisis management, which our deadline-free company fortunately rarely has.
Most certainly did not eat pineapple on his pizza, ever.
Len Lorijn
Magento Developer. Focusses on Hyvä Commerce development.
Len is a man of the world, who loves to travel. Has a weird fascination for the USA, yet keeps his roots in Netherlands.
He has a deep understanding of the Magento framework and dabs around in different areas, including Linux, Elastic Suite and Security matters.
Len's also a photographer and volunteer at a local (Groningen) music venue.
Ross McHugh
Magento Developer. Focusses on Hyvä Commerce development.
Between bricklayer and Magento developer/consultant, Ross has had many jobs including bartending and ski instructor. We're quite happy he made it to the Magento community eventually.
Ross enjoys a few sports (snowboarding, hiking, kayaking, swimming) and playing board/card games with family and friends.
Being born to Irish and West Indian parents, and living in Mallorca, there are a few places Ross calls home (and a couple of languages he speaks). He's currently working on his Spanish. ¡Ay, caramba!
Callan Zimmermann
Magento Developer. Focusses on Hyvä Commerce development.
Callan is a bit of a Wunderkind, and absorbing knowledge is his superpower. He'll hook up your Discord to the blockchain while watching e-sports in the background.
Born in the UK, grew up in Spain, then later returned to the UK to study software development. He spends a fair bit of his spare time behind the PC coding on sideprojects or playing video games.