Dutch navigation pioneer TomTom is entering a new chapter as co-founder and long-time chief executive Harold Goddijn prepares to step down after more than two decades at the helm of the company.

The move marks the end of an era for a firm that once symbolised Europe’s consumer tech ambitions but has since reinvented itself as a behind-the-scenes supplier to the automotive industry.

Goddijn, who co-founded TomTom in 1991 and has led the company since 2001, will step down as chief executive and board member following the company’s annual shareholder meeting on April 16.

He is expected to join the supervisory board. Mike Schoofs, TomTom’s chief revenue officer, has been nominated to succeed him. Schoofs joined the company in 2005 and has overseen the development of its global sales organisation and its commercial relationships with automakers and other corporate customers.

Vigreux also stepping back

The leadership transition also coincides with co-founder Corinne Vigreux stepping back from the company’s executive leadership. The French entrepreneur, who served for years as TomTom’s marketing chief and is married to Goddijn, has been closely involved in shaping the company’s strategy. Together, the pair guided TomTom through both its spectacular rise and its difficult transformation amid technological upheaval.

Two decades ago, TomTom was one of Europe’s most recognisable technology brands. Its portable navigation devices became a must-have gadget for motorists, guiding drivers through cities and across continents with satellite navigation technology that was still novel at the time.

The company quickly dominated the European market. By 2006, TomTom held roughly half of the region’s navigation device market, and the brand name had become synonymous with the product itself. For many drivers, asking for a navigation system meant asking for ‘a TomTom.’

The company’s success propelled it onto the Amsterdam stock exchange in 2005 and into the AEX index alongside corporate giants such as Shell and Philips. At the time, policymakers often held TomTom up as a model of innovation in the Netherlands, calling for “the next TomTom.”

Aquiring TeleAtlas

But the company’s fortunes changed dramatically as the technology landscape shifted. A costly acquisition of digital mapping company TeleAtlas in 2007  coincided with the global financial crisis and the rapid emergence of smartphones.

The company Tele Atlas, which TomTom acquired in 2007 for about €2.9 billion, was originally a Dutch-Belgian digital mapping company and one of the world’s two dominant providers of navigation map data at the time (the other being Navteq, later acquired by Nokia).

Navigation apps such as Google Maps soon offered free alternatives to dedicated navigation devices, undermining TomTom’s core consumer business.

Within a year, the company’s share price had fallen by around 90 percent. Over time, TomTom disappeared from the AEX and later from the mid-cap index, eventually landing among the smaller companies on the Amsterdam exchange.

Further pressure came as major automakers began adopting Google’s navigation systems. In 2018, the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance switched to Google technology, prompting analysts to question whether TomTom could survive. Some declared the decision a ‘death blow’ for the Amsterdam-based company.

Independent from Big Tech

Goddijn had long argued that many car manufacturers preferred TomTom precisely because it remained independent from American technology giants such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

He described his company as the ‘Switzerland of the navigation industry’, a neutral platform where valuable automotive data could remain secure and under manufacturers’ control rather than large technology platforms. Yet the competitive pressure from big tech proved difficult to ignore.

Despite repeated predictions of its demise, TomTom managed to reinvent itself. The company gradually shifted away from consumer hardware and toward digital maps, navigation software, and location data services for businesses.

Technology for carmakers

Today, most of its revenue comes from supplying technology to car manufacturers and corporate clients rather than from selling devices to consumers.

The transformation has made TomTom far less visible to the public. The disappearance of dashboard navigation devices also removed the brand from everyday drivers’ view.

Goddijn has remarked that people sometimes ask him whether the company still exists. Where TomTom once had millions of consumers as customers, it now works with a few hundred large corporate clients whose products rely on its mapping technology.

While the company is unlikely to regain the consumer prominence it once enjoyed, its technology still plays a role in emerging mobility trends. Highly detailed digital maps are increasingly important for advanced driver-assistance systems and the future development of autonomous vehicles. That market could expand significantly in the coming years, offering new opportunities for companies specialising in location data.