Wouter Klinkhamer

GM of EMEA Strategy & Operations Kiteworks

Last Reviewed: September 27, 2026

Executive Summary

Wouter Klinkhamer is GM of EMEA Strategy & Operations at Kiteworks, the company behind a private data network for governing and securing sensitive content. He came to Kiteworks through the sale of his own company. He co-founded Zivver, an Amsterdam provider of secure email and data exchange, with Dr. Rick Goud, and was its CEO when Kiteworks acquired it in June 2025. By then Zivver said it had about 130 staff and more than 11,000 client organisations. Since the acquisition he has spoken for Kiteworks in Europe on data sovereignty, AI governance and security.

Career Highlights

• GM of EMEA Strategy & Operations at Kiteworks, named in that role in January and February 2026 coverage.
• Co-founder of Zivver with Dr. Rick Goud; the company marked ten years since launch in 2025.
• CEO of Zivver when Kiteworks announced its acquisition in June 2025.
• At the time of the sale, Zivver reported offices in Amsterdam, London and New York, about 130 employees and more than 11,000 client organisations.
• Contributor on European AI governance, including a 2026 analysis of the Public Sector AI Adoption Index.

Professional Journey

Klinkhamer co-founded Zivver in the Netherlands with Dr. Rick Goud. Zivver set out to make it harder for sensitive information to leak by email. Its products classify the data in a message, prevent human error, and encrypt with a zero-access design. The products sit on top of Microsoft and Google email rather than replacing them. The company pitched this at organisations facing strict privacy regulation. Zivver described itself as Europe’s leading provider of secure communications and said Gartner had recognised it three times in a row as a Representative Vendor in email data protection.

He led the company as CEO. In June 2025 Zivver announced it had been acquired by Kiteworks, the US company whose Private Data Network governs how organisations send, share, receive and use private data. Kiteworks had raised $456 million in growth equity from Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth the previous year. Explaining the sale, Klinkhamer said Zivver had “surveyed countless companies and solutions globally”, and that its objective was to join a global leader sharing its vision for zero-access security that could meet Europe’s data sovereignty standards. Kiteworks said Zivver’s data would remain hosted within the EU. Terms were not disclosed.

He has since taken a wider European role at Kiteworks as GM of EMEA Strategy & Operations. In that capacity he has argued that European AI governance frameworks are incomplete without security controls on what AI systems can reach. He has also written about the findings of the Public Sector AI Adoption Index 2026.

Education

No education record was found in first-party or press sources.