Lessons Learned Of Asml: Building & Sustaining Innovation Under Uncertainty

Lessons Learned of ASML traces the journey from an underdog start‑up to the dominant supplier in a volatile Tech industry.

From underdog start-up to industry leader, 40 years of strategic choices, innovative breakthroughs, and bold choices revealed. Lessons Learned of ASML traces the journey from an underdog start‑up to the dominant supplier in a volatile Tech industry. Built on interviews, internal notes and archives, it reconstructs the managerial choices—how ambitions were set, investments staged, partnerships orchestrated, technologies chosen, and setbacks absorbed—and tests them across four decades. Each chapter applies a clear analytical lens and brief reflection prompts, bringing strategy, innovation and ecosystem coordination into one readable, evidence‑driven narrative that opens theory for practice without pretending there is a universal recipe.

Susanne van der Velden is an independent strategist and researcher focused on how organizations build and sustain innovation under uncertainty. She worked as a consultant and founder on organizational-learning software, then held leadership at FME (Smart Industry & AI) and digitalization for Royal Heijmans’ residential business. She obtained her PhD at Tilburg University and currently serves on the board of VNO-NCW Brabant Zeeland. Mohammad N. Nasiri is Assistant Professor of Strategy at the University of Amsterdam Business School, specializing in inter-organizational collaboration and innovation ecosystems. His research spans R&D alliances, consortia, and standard-setting, and he was UvA’s Lecturer of the Year in 2022. He holds a PhD from Tilburg University.